Kim Ablon Whitney won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award in children’s and young adult literature for her novel, “The Other Half of Life: A Novel Based on the True Story of the MS St. Louis.”
Ablon Whitney, along with other National Jewish Book Award winners, will be honored in March at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.
Written for a young adult audience, “The Other Half of Life” is a work of historical fiction based on the ill-fated voyage of the MS St. Louis, which sailed from Hamburg, Germany, in May 1939 carrying nearly 950 Jewish refugees who sought escape from Nazi persecution.
Ablon Whitney is a graduate of Tufts University and has an M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College. She lives in Newton, Mass., with her husband and sons.