Imani knows exactly what she wants as her big bat mitzvah gift: to find her birth parents. She loves her family and her Jewish community in Baltimore, but she has always wondered where she came from, especially since she's black and almost everyone she knows is white. Then her mom's grandmother — Imani's great-grandma Anna — passes away, and Imani discovers an old journal among her books.
It's Anna's diary from 1941, the year she was twelve and fled Nazi-occupied Luxembourg alone, sent by her parents to seek refuge in Brooklyn, New York. Anna's diary records her journey to America and her new life with an adoptive family of her own. And as Imani reads the diary, she begins to see her family, and her place in it, in a whole new way. This story that winds together two girls' tales captures how the ties that hold family together are far more than blood.
"As one of the only black kids in her Baltimore community, Imani is used to insensitive questions about her background and Judaism, and she longs to connect with the biological family who share her DNA. When she discovers her great-grandmother Anna’s diary of her journey from Luxembourg to Brooklyn to escape the Nazis, she finds a kindred spirit.... Both Anna and Imani are richly drawn characters, complex and sympathetic. Imani gains insight from Anna that helps her decide what she truly needs to know about her past, in this moving, deftly plotted story." — Publishers Weekly
Recommended Age | 10 - 13 |
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Author | Elissa Brent Weissman |
ISBN | 0735229473 |
Publication Date | May 1, 2018 |
Publisher | Dial Books |
Language | English |