The front window had been shattered by a huge rock that was now lying on the floor of the store. Father ran outside. I followed. A banner was hanging from the door...In large, red, hand-painted letters were the words Germans go home. It is 1941. Fourteen-year-old Ben Friedman flees the horrors of Nazi Germany with his parents and his sister, leaving behind his grandparents, his friends, his home. They make a difficult journey over land and sea all the way to Japan and then to America. In Seattle, Ben dares to hope that he will finally be safe. He finds a friend in John, a Japanese-American boy, but then comes the attack on Pearl Harbor and everything changes. Fear begins to grow in Ben, fear that it is all happening again. Where can he be safe? What should he do? He dreams of Canada, thinking it a haven, only to find that he has nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. Perhaps safety is not where or even what he thinks it is. Perhaps life is not what he imagined at all. Carol Matas is an internationally acclaimed author of over thirty-five novels for children and young adults. Her best-selling work, which includes three award-winning series, has been translated into many languages. Carol has won many awards including The Geoffrey Bilson award, the inaugural Silver Birch award and The Jewish Book Award. Her books have appeared on numerous honor lists, such as the ALA notable list, The New York Times notable list and The New York Public Library list for the Teen Age. She has also been nominated twice for a Governor General's Award. Carol lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with her husband.