World War II is over, but dis­placed Jews are still wait­ing in intern­ment camps in Europe, unable to begin rebuild­ing their lives. Young Bar­bara and her Jew­ish fam­i­ly live safe­ly in Toron­to, but Barbara’s father is involved in the efforts to bring as many of these dis­placed Jews as pos­si­ble to Cana­da and ensure that they have pro­duc­tive employ­ment. He must make repeat­ed trips to Europe to facil­i­tate this process, leav­ing Bar­bara, her moth­er, and her broth­ers home in Cana­da await­ing his return.

One day, Bar­bara dis­cov­ers a pea­cock has made itself at home in her gar­den. The pea­cock is

resplen­dent — col­or­ful, regal — and seems peace­ful enough, but her moth­er is ter­ri­fied of pea­cocks and wants to dri­ve it away. Barabara thinks the zoo could pro­vide the bird with sanc­tu­ary but the zoo offi­cials say they aren’t miss­ing any pea­cocks and don’t need any new ones. Bar­bara needs to use all her cre­ativ­i­ty to come up with a plan to save the pea­cock and find it a new home as well as to solve her family’s prob­lems in a sub­tle but defin­i­tive way.

This is a charm­ing tale that high­lights the plight of Europe’s dis­placed Jews and some Cana­di­ans’ attempts to help them begin anew. The sto­ry is based on the true tale of the author’s grand­fa­ther who spear­head­ed a project to bring a group of Jew­ish tai­lors to Cana­da after the Holo­caust in spite of the harsh immi­gra­tion laws of the time. The char­ac­ters are well-delin­eat­ed, the illus­tra­tions add to the sto­ry with expres­sive faces and pos­tures, and a bit of pre­vi­ous­ly unknown his­to­ry can be absorbed by the read­ers while they are simul­ta­ne­ous­ly being amused by a sto­ry that has many humor­ous touch­es. The mean­ing of the word ​“home” and all it entails are the focus of this easy-to-read and appeal­ing story.