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 accept Jews
without visas. 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 in part from malnourishment. Lillia
finds an outlet for her artistic talent by making puppets remembering the happy days in Warsaw
when her family was circus performers. 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. But meanwhile the conflict grows more intense as the Americans declare war and the
Japanese force the Americans in Shanghai into camps. More bombing more death. Can they survive
caught in the crossfire?
