Someday We Will Fly, Rachel DeWoskin
Someday We Will Fly, Rachel DeWoskin
1 Rating(s)
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Someday We Will Fly

Author: Rachel DeWoskin

Narrator: Jayne Entwistle, Rachel DeWoskin

Unabridged: 11 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/22/2019


Synopsis

A heart-wrenching coming-of-age story set in Shanghai during World War II, one of the only places Jews without visas could find refuge.

“A provocative exploration of what resilience means when you’re pushed to the edge.”—BCCB

“A beautifully nuanced exploration of culture and people.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Shanghai, 1941.

When her mother vanishes from Warsaw, Lillia Kazka and her family flee Poland and the Nazis for Shanghai, a city also at war. Occupied by the Japanese army, Shanghai is one of the few remaining places in the world where Jewish families without visas can land safely. There with her father and baby sister, Lillia must learn to survive, even though her mother is missing, even though everything feels impossibly unfamiliar to the refugees who have lost entire lives.

With help from a community of strangers and friends, Lillia learns how to keep herself and her family intact, how to speak Chinese, how to scrape together enough food to survive, and how to protect her speechless sister. Struggling to find meaning for herself in a new life she didn’t ask for, and to make sense of the shattered lives around her, Lillia waits—for her mother, for certainty, for the place that might ultimately feel like home.

About The Author

Rachel DeWoskin spent her twenties in China as the unlikely star of a nighttime soap opera that inspired her memoir Foreign Babes in Beijing. She is the author of Repeat After Me and Big Girl Small, which received the American Library Association's Alex Award for an adult book with special appeal to teen readers; Rachel's conversations with young readers inspired her to write her first YA novel, Blind. Rachel is on the faculty of the University of Chicago, where she teaches creative writing. She lives in Chicago with her husband, playwright Zayd Dohrn, and their two daughters.Rachel and her family spent six summers in Shanghai while she researched Someday We Will Fly.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Katy O.

Powerful historical fiction. The fact that I just read an excellent adult novel that was about this exact same topic and time period may have taken my appreciation of it from love to like, however ~ if you want an outstanding adult story of Jewish refugees in Shanghai during WWII, definitely read “T......more

I don't know how to explain this book other than "touching." It truly is a very different type of story and experience that Lillian goes through . The cultural and language I pact alone but then add I. Your mother, hovering Japanese soldiers, poverty and having to step up at 15 to take care of your......more

The author of FOREIGN BABES IN BEIJING and BIG GIRL SMALL, Rachel DeWoskin, now brings a new novel to the stage --- SOMEDAY WE WILL FLY. This novel captures an unknown moment in history during World War II and the Holocaust: Jewish refugees in Shanghai. Before May 17th, 1940, Lillia's parents, Bercik......more

Goodreads review by Rachel

An increasing number of books are highlighting a lesser known aspect of World War II: the Jews who escaped Europe and found their way to Shanghai. Desperate times make people act in ways they might otherwise never consider, as Lillia Kazka discovers in “Someday We Will Fly” by Rachel DeWoskin (Vikin......more

Goodreads review by Amy

I really wanted to like this book. It highlights a piece of history about which I knew very little and the story seems like a good idea. It was just such a slog and I did not find the writing compelling.......more


Quotes

"DeWoskin explores a rarely depicted topic . . . A beautifully nuanced exploration of culture and people."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

" An unusual portrait of what war does to families in general and children in particular . . . affirms the human need for art and beauty in hard times."—Booklist, starred review

"A provocative exploration of what resilience means when you’re pushed to the edge."—BCCB