I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

This was a terrific, beautiful book, though I have one thing that I didn’t expect. I thought Hedy would be a kid, not the teen/adult she was in the book. This for various reasons, often when they say girl, they mean a child (at least going by what I see in English books/movies), and also there aren’t that many picture books from the POV of an older teen/adult.

But the story is absolutely gorgeous! And it brought tears to my eyes. Poor Hedy, poor Marika.

The journey was a harrow one, especially the part where they travel to America, to safety. I was at first worried that they would go back to Hungary again (don’t do it I was shouting at my book), but thankfully they were in luck and they could go to safety.

There was quite a bit of text on each page, but I didn’t mind it. The text is often lovely interwoven with the illustrations. The language is quite easy (as in not that many difficult words, short-ish sentences), though, unlike other picture books, this one is definitely for an older audience because of the amount of text, plus the tiny font, plus that there are some words that not every kid that is normally the age group for picture books, will understand.

This book will definitely get bought by me, and I will also be sure to recommend it to people when they ask for a WWII book.

I also love the ending in which we have a timeline, and some information about the family, and about the daughter who wrote the book. We also have some family photographs, and I loved that they were added.

The illustrations are the last part I want to discuss, and I definitely liked the style. It fitted seamlessly with the text and the story. The illustrator really captured the right feeling with their illustrations.