When the orphan­age that Sara has lived in since baby­hood burns to the ground, Sara is already eigh­teen-years-old and poised to leave. With the mon­ey she’s saved and the memen­tos she’s been giv­en, she trav­els to Ger­many to explore the Jew­ish her­itage she has only just learned she belongs to. It turns out that her moth­er sur­vived a Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camp, only to die in a DP camp, giv­ing birth to her. But Sara does reunite with her grand­fa­ther, find a roman­tic inter­est, and start to under­stand both the his­to­ry of the Holo­caust and the pow­er of for­give­ness. Part of a series of books by Kathy Kac­er, Secrets, about inter­con­nect­ed char­ac­ters, this is a mov­ing sto­ry with a like­able pro­tag­o­nist — even if read­ers are asked to swal­low a few too many coincidences.

Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 12 – 15.