Kobo Kono

The book starts with seventeen year old Eleanor 'Ellie' Parker waking up on the embankment of a river half in the water, in the early hours of the morning. Ellie has little recollection of the night before. She manages to get home, but throughout the morning she begins to find that she has significant bruising on her chest and arms, she finds that she can’t get warm, and cannot eat or hold anything down when she eats. After no food, no sleep, and no experience of pain since awakening on the river embankment, Ellie becomes convinced that she died that night. She has no explanation as to how she is still conscious and functioning as she did prior to the forgotten night. Ellie and her family lives in a small town where gossip appears to be one of the main currencies. Nothing is private in the town, and for anything that is a well kept secret, becomes embellished beyond belief through rumours, and lies. Ellie’s brother Oliver has been the centre of scrutiny in the previous y...

My Real Name is Hanna By Tara Lynn Masih. This is a book of Hanna Slivka and her family’s many struggles during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. Hanna, fourteen at the time and as the occupation continues, Hanna wonders if she will be able to survive long enough to see her next birthdays. Her family is well respected in their small community, they are able to utilize news from other parts of the country to try and stay ahead of the Gestapo. The book begins with the Silvia’s hiding different people in their barn for usually overnight. Eventually the family feels it a time to go into hiding themselves they find themselves in a cabin in the woods for a short period of time. The eventually realize that the SS are drawing nearer in their searches for any of the remaining Jews within the area. The family finds their way into a dark (mostly uninhabited) cave. With the constant worry of food, and survival necessitates always running on low, the family is always...