Csilla has felt protected by the Duna river her entire life, and especially during the Holocaust of World War II, but that magic seems to have broken when Communists took control of Hungary. When her parents are killed by the secret police, Csilla's deep feelings of betrayal and disconnection cause her to plan her escape from her unrecognizable homeland. They are posthumously exonerated, however, sparking a series of protests that make her reconsider...

Lina is a fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. She's just like any other girl. Until one night in 1941, when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother are taken slowly north to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to dig for beets and fight for...