Deb Bowen is the first to admit that she didn't have a plan for what has become A Book by Me, a series of short books for children, mostly about Holocaust survivors, written and illustrated primarily by middle- and high-school students.

"I don't really know why I took the initiative to do it [initially], except that I felt their stories were so important," she said last week.

The seed was planted in 2003, when she attended a Yom HaShoah event so her daughter could get extra credit at school. There, she learned that three Holocaust survivors in the Quad Cities were all named Esther. "I'd never been to a synagogue before" that Holocaust remembrance, said Bowen, who's a Christian.