In 1998 when the Kosovo hostilities escalate, thirteen-year-old Meli's life as an ethnic Albanian, changes forever after her brother escapes his Serbian captors and the entire family flees from one refugee camp to another until they are able to immigrate to America.

This is a perfectly fine book that accurately depicts the refugee experience, but it lacks passion. It reads like an assignment: something Paterson thought she should write, and wrote in a competent and workmanlike fashion. It checks all the boxes for a typical refugee experience, as if it were written by recipe. Fast readers and youngsters who want to read about Albanians in Kosovo will find it a worthwhile book. ( )

Didn't finish - maybe another time, but after just a few pp it reminded me too much of the WWII Holocaust stories and all the Karen Hesse I've been reading lately, and I just need a break.

Paterson does a great job with a time and place that is not often covered in childrens' books. ( )

insight into the Albanian genocide by Serbians in Kosovo, harrowing yet hopeful; some universal themes make this a good choice for book discussion. ( )