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A teenager leaves his fiancée behind in their Anatolian village to make a new life in Canada for them both. But when WWI breaks out, he is sent to an internment camp while his betrothed struggles to survive and find a way to join him.
About the author
Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's award-winning books for young people include
Last Airlift, a Red Cedar Information Book Award winner and OLA Red Maple Honour Book. Its sequel,
One Step at a Time, won the OLA Silver Birch Non-Fiction Award. Her YA novel
Dance of the Banished is a Junior Library Guild Selection for 2015. In 2008, in recognition of her outstanding achievement in the development Ukraine's culture, Marsha was awarded the Order of Princess Olha. She lives in Brantford, Ontario.
Summary
Winner of the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People
Ali and his fiancée Zeynep dream about leaving their home in Anatolia and building a new life together in Canada. But their homeland is controlled by the Turkish government, which is on the brink of war with Britain and Russia. And although Ali finds passage to Canada to work, he is forced to leave Zeynep behind until he can earn enough to bring her out to join him.
When the First World War breaks out and Canada joins Britain, Ali is declared an enemy alien. Unable to convince his captors that he is a refugee from an oppressive regime, he is thrown in an internment camp where he must count himself lucky to have a roof over his head and food to eat.
Meanwhile, Zeynep is a horrified witness to the suffering of her Christian Armenian neighbours under the Young Turk revolutionary forces. Caught in a country that is destroying its own people, she is determined to save a precious few. But if her plan succeeds, will Zeynep still find a way to cross the ocean to search out Ali? And if she does, will he still be waiting for her?
