Finished: The Forest of Vanishing Stars (Harmel) Such a good book! In 1922, in Berlin, an old woman sneaks into the home of a German couple and takes their two year old daughter. The woman sees visions, and all she knows is she has to take the baby and keep her safe. She raises the girl, Yona, in the forest, never letting her interact with any other human beings. She teaches her, though, how to live off the land, how to build shelter, how to protect herself, how to read, how to speak several languages, and how to kill someone with her hands. Yona questions why she needs to know all these things, and the woman just tells her that she needs to be prepared...bad times are coming. The old woman teaches Yona as many faiths as she can, but basically raises her in the Jewish faith. As time goes on and World War II begins, the old woman and Yona often hear planes overhead, and finally even bombs dropping. They are very careful to move their camp often to avoid meeting any soldiers. In 1942, when Yona is 22 years old, the old woman dies. On her deathbed she tells Yona where she lived and the name of her parents. She tells Yona that they were evil people, but that she must tell her in case she ever needs to use her father's name for safety. Yona has flashes of her parents' faces and wonders if she would know them if she saw them. For the first time in her life, Yona is alone in the world. She loves the forest, feels connected to it, and doesn't want to leave it. One day, as she wanders near a river, closer to a village than usual, she comes across two emaciated men who are trying to catch fish with just their hands. She's shy at first, but happy to show them how to catch fish for their dinner. When they tell her that they are villagers, escaped from their village when the German Nazis came through killing Jewish families, she's appalled. They tell her that there are eleven others back at their camp, all of them having lost loved ones to the brutality. She shows them how to build a net and a basket, and helps them catch more than enough fish to feed everyone. They ask Yona to come back to their camp, and she agrees. Once there, she meets all the other people, including three young children, all of them dirty, ragged and hungry. Yona realizes she needs to stay as long as it takes to teach them to survive in the forest. This must be her mission, she thinks. I can't go into all the detail, but the stories they tell of dead loved ones, and the jobs they used to do in the village, and the fear they feel of the Germans, who could hunt for them any day, are heartbreaking. As you might imagine, Yona stays with the camp for a long time, even falling in love. Something happens that makes her leave the camp and her new Jewish family, though, and she packs up and leaves in the middle of the night. They've already lived through a harsh winter in the woods together, so she knows they'll be all right. Yona decides to go into a nearby village to see how things are there, and is shocked to see it occupied by German soldiers and nearly destroyed. I don't want to give away too much, but she grows close to some nuns, and then is instrumental in trying to save them when the Nazis are about to line them up and kill them. The German soldier in charge? Yona stands frozen as she recognizes him. It's her father! She yells out his name right as the nuns are about to be shot. As he turns to see her, he can't believe it. He comes closer to see if it's really his daughter...the one with two different colored eyes...the one with the birthmark shaped like a dove on her wrist. And, it is. He's beside himself with happiness and temporarily halts the execution. But as he takes her to the house he's commandeered, to eat and clean up, she can't believe that her father is one of the evil men who has been killing Jewish people. She tells him this and he pleads his case, trying to convince her that the people of the Jewish race aren't even human. He tells her that the Germans plan to search and attack all the runaway Jews in the forest in two weeks time. Yona is torn that she feels love for this man who is nothing but a monster. And, it's clear that he's so happy to have his baby back. Yona's mother had died of a broken heart two years after she was kidnapped. But, they are so at odds about the basic tenets of human decency, that she knows she can't stay there. She must go back to warn her friends in the forest. Does she succeed? Can she save those people and maybe more? Does she even survive the end of the war? hmmmmm :-)