It is 1944 and Red Army soldiers have liberated the Polish town of Dobryd from Nazi occupation. After three years of hiding, a family are helped down from a hayloft and given bread. One of the soldiers picks up a four-year-old child and carries her outside. She looks around in wonder and feels, for the first time in her life, the fresh air of summer on her cheeks.

So begins a young girl’s new life amid the ruins of World War II. While adults mourn what was lost forever, the narrator explores a world that had been forbidden to her, 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 young child also pieces together the past that the adults are determined to bury.

In this powerful autobiographical novel about momentous events, Montreal writer Ann Charney tells an illuminating story of ordinary people committing appalling crimes and surviving unfathomable despair. Written with fierce candour and insight, it is a compelling story of the human spirit.