Cyn­thia Ehrenkrantz, nee Shelow­er, was six in 1939 when Britain entered World War II and twelve in 1945 when the war end­ed. Seek­ing Shel­ter is her vivid child’s eye account of life in wartime Eng­land as she lived it: an adored only child in a large Jew­ish clan whose com­fort­able exis­tence becomes one of food short­ages, ration books, gas masks, and air raid sirens and – worst of all, for a sen­si­tive pre­co­cious child accus­tomed to cod­dling and att­ten­tion – being sent away for months and years at a stretch to escape Ger­man bombs.

Con­tend­ing with bul­lies, rush­ing from a warm bed to a back­yard shel­ter, Cyn­thia finds life hard but good: she shines in a school play, enjoys the beau­ty of the Eng­lish coun­try­side, and cel­e­brates Passover. These are the mixed real­i­ties of wartime that mark young Cyn­thia for­ev­er in ways only adult Cyn­thia, look­ing back lat­er, can understand.