February 15, 2007
During World War II, life for Jutka, a 14-year-old Hungarian Jew, turns upside down within a matter of months. Jutka and her family are transported to Auschwitz, where her mother and grandmother perish, and she endures unimaginable cruelty, which Wiseman described in significant, sometimes graphic detail. Dreams of Canada, inspired by a book from a Canadian relative, sustain her. After the liberation, Jutka falls in love with Sandor, who dreams of relocating to Israel. Jutka must choose a future with the man she loves or her own dream of Canada and life with her only remaining kin. The book is notable among Holocaust fiction as it depicts life after the war, when concentration camp survivors, ostracized and homeless, picked up the pieces of their lives. However, the story sometimes meanders as it strives to depict the times, and some elements and terms (for example, " Eretz Israel") want more explanation. Still, Jutka is a resilient, realistically drawn heroine, and readers will easily bond to and pull for her as she navigates her loss of innocence.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)