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Zusatztext ? " DeWoskin explores a rarely depicted topic. . .A beautifully nuanced exploration of culture and people." - Kirkus Reviews ! starred review ? " An unusual portrait of what war does to families in general and children in particular . . . affirms the human need for art and beauty in hard times." - Booklist ! starred review "A provocative exploration of what resilience means when you’re pushed to the edge." - BCCB Informationen zum Autor Rachel DeWoskin Klappentext From the author of Blind, a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story set during World War II in Shanghai, one of the only places Jews without visas could find refuge. Warsaw, Poland. The year is 1940 and Lillia is fifteen when her mother, Alenka, disappears and her father flees with Lillia and her younger sister, Naomi, to Shanghai, one of the few places that will welcome them. There they struggle to make a life; they have no money, there is little work, no decent place to live, a culture that doesn't understand them. And always the worry about Alenka. How will she find them? Is she still alive? Meanwhile Lillia is growing up, trying to care for Naomi, whose development is frighteningly slow from malnourishment. She attends school sporadically, makes friends with Wei, a Chinese boy, and finds work as a performer at a "gentlemen's club" without her father's knowledge. As the conflict grows more intense, the Americans declare war and the Japanese force the Americans in Shanghai into camps. More bombing, more death. Can Lillia and her family survive, caught in the crossfire? Heime, Home 1940 I first saw Shanghai from over my father’s shoulder. I was feverish the final two weeks on the ship, as if my hair had been protecting my head and once I was without it, sickness leaked in. I missed the last three ports: Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong. Of course I wouldn’t have been allowed off the ship anyway, but I was sorry not to have seen them. When I woke, soaked with broken fever, we were descending the ship’s gangplank, Papa carrying Naomi, me, and all of our things. So I guess it was for the best that we had so little with us. As far as I could see there were human beings, throbbing with heat, an electric mob of running, waving, shouting. There were animals and also men pulling carts, racing, climbing onto and off of boats so rickety they looked as if they’d been made by hand from paper, people entering and exiting buildings; everywhere store fronts and signs covered with slashes and dots that made a language I couldn’t understand. I reached across Papa’s neck and held Naomi’s hand. “What day is it?” I heard him say, “July.” We had been traveling for over a month, and now it was July and we were here, in Shanghai. Out from the endless rush of people carrying meat, lumber, bricks, passengers, giant pieces of glass emerged a man on a bicycle. He was the first person I could see individually somehow. There were so many of us. He had brown skin and bright eyes, and was watching the street ahead of him. How was he balancing his bicycle? The back was stacked with so many packages it looked like a house made of boxes. A pole crossed his neck and shoulders; from each end hung pails that seemed to pull the metal down, bending it on either side and digging a groove in his flesh. He moved so slowly through the hot street. He was the first Chinese person I’d seen, and he looked the same as anyone else, but also different. I felt a wild confusion that resembled excitement. What did I look like to those who weren’t me? Another man pulled a two-wheeled cart by, fast. He was thin as a single bone. In his cart perched a woman whose white hair flew behind her. She held a fur blanket with an animal’s head still attached. It had teeth. I was surprised to see a blanket in such heat. Only when the man veered around them did I notice the gr...
