From the start this story had me hooked. As a sales rep for a publisher, I get many books passing through my hands I need to read for my job or people tell me I must read. I adore books, yet there are very few that I have actually sat up all night to keep reading. This is one of them. From the beginning the story of the Jewish mother Roza and her musical prodigy daughter, Shira, as they hide from the Germans in WWII, totally absorbed me. The reader follows their story from both the mother and daughter's perspective as they are forced to remain hidden and silent in a barn, to when the mother makes the hardest decision of her life and they must separate in order to have the best chance of survival. The daughter has an imaginary bird she thinks about and talks to in her mind and her mother makes up stories about that bird to keep her young daughter distracted. Shira's family are all musicians, and Shira 'thinks' in music. I found the way she would describe her feelings and what is happening around her as musical notes extremely moving.

I have really struggled to find the right words to express the emotions this book drew from me. You can see the author is a poet from the beautiful way the book is written as the story evolves. This is not just a story of the holocaust or a WWII survival story. It is the most powerful story I have read of the bond between a mother and child and what that mother will do to keep her child safe since Room by Emma Donoghue. Perhaps that also comes from being a mother myself and being able to totally recognise that desperate need to protect your child at ANY cost to yourself.
Just read it.