Someday We Will Fly - Hardcover

DeWoskin, Rachel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670014966 ISBN 13: 9780670014965

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2019

Synopsis

From the author of Blind, a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story set during World War II in Shanghai, one of the only places Jews without visas could find refuge.

Warsaw, Poland. The year is 1940 and Lillia is fifteen when her mother, Alenka, disappears and her father flees with Lillia and her younger sister, Naomi, to Shanghai, one of the few places that will accept Jews without visas. There they struggle to make a life; they have no money, there is little work, no decent place to live, a culture that doesn't understand them. And always the worry about Alenka. How will she find them? Is she still alive?

    Meanwhile Lillia is growing up, trying to care for Naomi, whose development is frighteningly slow, in part from malnourishment. Lillia finds an outlet for her artistic talent by making puppets, remembering the happy days in Warsaw when her family was circus performers. She attends school sporadically, makes friends with Wei, a Chinese boy, and finds work as a performer at a "gentlemen's club" without her father's knowledge.

But meanwhile the conflict grows more intense as the Americans declare war and the Japanese force the Americans in Shanghai into camps. More bombing, more death. Can they survive, caught in the crossfire?

About this title

About the Author

Rachel DeWoskin spent her twenties in China as the unlikely star of a nighttime soap opera that inspired her memoir Foreign Babes in Beijing. She is the author of Repeat After Me and Big Girl Small, which received the American Library Association's Alex Award for an adult book with special appeal to teen readers; Rachel's conversations with young readers inspired her to write her first YA novel, Blind. Rachel is on the faculty of the University of Chicago, where she teaches creative writing. She lives in Chicago with her husband, playwright Zayd Dohrn, and their two daughters.
Rachel and her family spent six summers in Shanghai while she researched Someday We Will Fly.

From School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-When Lillia's mother disappears as they are about to leave Poland for Shanghai, fleeing persecution because they are Jewish and caught up in World War II, Lillia, her father, and her younger sister are forced to leave without her mother. They settle into a new life in Shanghai, but Lillia remains haunted by the mystery of her mother's whereabouts and the whole family struggles with their new, precarious position. Refugees in a land divided in its own ways by class and race, they each must cope with loss, poverty, and displacement. As the family's circumstances worsen, Lillia must decide how far she will go to help her father and sister. The historical setting and explorations of disability and interracial relationships add interest to the story. However, the number of different plot elements means that no single point is developed fully, leading to some difficult-to-believe moments and some underdeveloped relationships. Nevertheless, readers will be left with a story detailing poverty, failure, and strength. References for further reading add additional depth and credibility to the setting. VERDICT Grounded in historical details and unflinchingly portraying refugee life, the novel takes World War II fiction in a new direction.-Zoё McLaughlin, Michigan State University

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0670014966
• ISBN 13: 9780670014965
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368