Jewish Lillia is ten when she, her father, and her developmentally disabled younger sister flee Poland in 1940, taking a ship to the relative safety of Shanghai. Lillia’s mother is missing after a raid on the circus where her parents worked as acrobats and they were forced to leave the country without her. In Shanghai, Lillia and her family eke out an existence, living in squalid conditions among other Jewish refugees. Lillia befriends Wei, a Chinese boy who cleans the school she attends, as well as several Jewish girls from around the world, most of whom enjoy greater wealth, safety, and security than she. The war progresses, and with Japan occupying China, food and resources are scarcer than ever. Without her father’s knowledge, Lillia begins dancing at a night club, earning money for their family. All the while she holds desperately to the hope that her mother is alive and will join them soon. A story that navigates both implied and expressed trauma and threat is packed with vivid details of time, people, and place. This unusual World War II novel also employs acrobatics and puppetry as part of the plot to examine how creativity is a sustaining force and source of hope. (Age 13 and older)

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?