-paraphrased from the Talmud and quoted in the novel
I chose to read this novel because I have read others by this author and because I will attend an event soon where she will be the speaker. Kristin Harmel wrote The Winemaker's Wife and The Book of Lost Names, both of which I rated 5. I am rating this one a 4---very good, but not quite measuring up to the other two. At the beginning I wondered if I would like it at all when a witch-like character, Jerusza, kidnapped a German child, whom she renamed Yona, from her crib and took her to raise in the forest. It just seemed weird to me.
The plot became more compelling when Jerusza died some 20 years later and Yona meets Polish Jews in the forest. These people are frightened, running from the Nazis and something in Yona urges her to help them by teaching survival skills she knows so well. As she teaches these endangered people what they must know to stay alive, she learns many lessons from them about living with other people and even about love.
The author has much to say in her Author's Note about her research and the writing of this novel. She cites shocking statistics of how many Polish Jews were exterminated by the Nazis and how some survived by taking refuge in the Nalibocka Forest as do the characters that Yona meets. This was a part of the Holocaust I knew less about.
There were a few secondary characters I really liked, especially Sister Maria Andrzeja who had great wisdom to pass on to Yona, and Zus, who would become her soul-mate.
There were many profound passages I could have quoted but I was touched by the one from the Talmud. I was reminded also of tikkum olam, a Hebrew phrase that means "repair the world." This is what heroes like Yona tried to do.
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