Imagine being separated from your parents at age 10 and being sent to live with a new family in a new country. That is what happens to Franziska on the eve of World War II. She is a German girl who is a Christian, but her Jewish ancestry makes her a target for the Nazis. Her father is arrested and her mother gets her on a kindertransport train to England, where she is taken in by a Jewish family. She spends the next seven years with a strange family in a strange country, all the while worrying about her parents and hoping that they survive the war. Frances, as she is called in England, grows and changes and feels more English than German at times. Her relationship with her foster family is at the heart of the book. It's a rich, detailed story about growing up and coming of age, and the backdrop of World War II makes it all the more interesting. Recommended for historical fiction readers grades 7-up.
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