When 15-year-old Reuven Bloom’s shtetl is destroyed in a pogrom, his life changes for­ev­er. His par­ents and old­er sis­ter are killed; only Reuven and his baby sis­ter, Rachel, sur­vive. Des­per­ate and total­ly respon­si­ble for the baby, Reuven makes his way to Vil­na, where a cousin lives. There he gives up his bud­ding musi­cal career as a vio­lin­ist to become a mem­ber of the Bund and an under­ground fight­er. Rachel, mean­while, is sent with an aunt to join rel­a­tives in Amer­i­ca. Reuven nev­er los­es his yearn­ing for music, how­ev­er, and doesn’t have the rev­o­lu­tion­ary zeal of his com­rades. When he encoun­ters his old­er sister’s mur­der­er and recov­ers his vio­lin, he decides to join Rachel and his oth­er rel­a­tives in Amer­i­ca. An after­word sum­ma­rizes Reuven’s life in Amer­i­ca, where he becomes a not­ed con­cert vio­lin­ist and com­pos­er. The his­tor­i­cal set­ting is the chief strength of the nov­el, cap­tur­ing in bold relief the wors­en­ing of con­di­tions for Jews, their polit­i­cal rad­i­cal­iza­tion, and the rea­son why so many emi­grat­ed. Reuven is a believ­able pro­tag­o­nist and his per­son­al sto­ry is com­pelling. This is a com­pan­ion to Lasky’s ear­li­er nov­el, The Night Jour­ney, which is about the escape from Rus­sia of a girl whom Reuven lat­er mar­ries. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 12 – 15.