The Red Army soldiers who found them helped them down from the hayloft where they had been hiding for almost three years and gave them bread. One of the soldiers picked up the four-year-old girl and carried her outside. She looked around in wonder. For the first time in her conscious life, she felt the fresh air of summer on her cheeks.

So begins her new life amid the ruins of World War II in Eastern Europe. It is 1944. The Polish town of Dobryd has just been liberated by the Red Army. While adults mourn what is lost forever, the narrator explores a world forbidden to her for so long, discovering the pleasures of the senses and the company of other children. Though resolutely thriving in the present and thrilled about what's ahead, the narrator pieces together the past that the adults had wanted to hide from her.

In this powerful novel about momentous events, Montreal writer Ann Charney tells an illuminating story of ordinary people committing appalling crimes, but never stoops to victimization and self-pity.

ANN CHARNEY was born in Poland and raised in Montreal. She is a novelist, essayist, and journalist, who has an MA in French literature from McGill University and a license ès lettres from the Sorbonne in Paris. She has won two National Magazine Awards, the Chatelaine Fiction Prize, and the Canadian Authors' Association Prize, and was recently named an officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Her first novel, Distantly Related to Freud, was pu

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PETER MCFARLANE is a Canadian author, journalist, editor and arts administrator.His first book was Northern Shadows: Canadians and Central America. He has since published numerous articles and edited countless books including award winning titles such as: Unsettling Canada, Reconciliation Manifesto, In the Black and Fight and Submit. He served as Chair of the Writers Union of Canada in 1998-99 and has worked as a manager for arts organizations. He lives in the Laurentians north of Montreal.

Peter McFarlane's profile page

"One of the truly significant insights into the effects of war." Books in Canada

"A 'marvelous' autobiographical novel of a Jewish girl emerging from hiding in Poland after the defeat of the Nazis, and rediscovering freedom and hope."Publishers Weekly

"One of the best books on a European destiny in our century."Stuttgarter Zeitung, Germany

"Original and compelling, this book makes us believe in the possibility of happiness amid the terrors of war"Frankfurter Neue PresseGermany

"A terrifying and inspiring story of war seen through the eyes of a child." L?express, Belgium

"An extraordinary testimonial to the strength of the human spirit, even in the worst times." Flair, Belgium

"A tale told with great skill and simplicity; her book is a tour de force." Maclean's

"The novel's unsentimental, clear-eyed vision offers hope that, with luck, the human spirit can blossom under the most dreadful circumstances." Mary Soderstrom