It’s not easy teaching young children about the Armenian Genocide. The facts are soaked in blood. Good doesn’t triumph over evil in the end. And now that 100 years have gone by, the human bonds connecting us to the death of 1.5 million Armenians have all but passed into memory. Maybe that’s why one camp of Armenian parents chooses to avoid the subject until their children reach adolescence. By that time, however, the story has often taken on the overtones of a shameful family secret in the teenage psyche.

When young Armenians inevitably encounter the horrors of their people’s past on the internet or from their peers, they can’t help feel that their parents have been hiding something central to their own identity. In contrast, the full immersion approach comes with a heavy price as well. The brutality of the massacres and deportations is overwhelming for an innocent mind. Fortunately, “The Torn Photograph (a story of hope and survival)”, a children’s picture book by author Lucy Erysian and illustrator Artur Karapetyan, courageously charts a middle path. Erysian tells a simple story on a human scale of two young brothers who are separated during the genocide. While the brothers cannot rebuild their happy childhood in the Armenian community of Adana, perseverance and determination reunite them in Fresno, California, 20 years later.

Their story of personal redemption is seen through the eyes of their grandchildren, who learn the value of the ties that hold a family together. The book is written in both English and Eastern Armenian, and should be easily accessible for children age 8 and above. Accompanying the text is a set of richly drawn illustrations by Karapetyan. As the last of the genocide survivors leaves us, books like “The Torn Photograph” will become all the more important in preserving a connection to a history that must never be forgotten. Available from the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), Tel: 617-489- 1610 or email: hq@naasr.org. Also available online through Amazon.com