• Age: 12 to 18
• Grade: 7 to 12

After fifteen-year-old Freda’s father disappears on Crystal Night, she, her mother, and her younger sister flee Germany for the “safe haven” of Shanghai. But the safe haven becomes anything but “safe” when Freda’s mother abandons her children. Forced to become an adult before her time, Freda finds strength, work, and new friends. She also joins the Junior Jewish Resistance, a small group of young people determined to show their defiance of Japanese and Nazi soldiers who are too close for comfort in their new home.

Lynne Kositsky is an award-winning poet and the author of several novels in Penguin's Our Canadian Girl series, including Rachel: A Mighty Big Imagining, which won the White Raven Award. Lynne's fiction has been nominated for the Geoffrey Bilson, White Pine, Golden Oak, Hackmatack Awards, in 2006 she won the Canadian Jewish Book Award for Youth for The Thought of High Windows. She lives in Vineland, Ontario, with her husband, Michael, a composer, and her two shelties, who provided the template for Tempest, the doggy character in Minerva's Voyage.

Lynne Kositsky's profile page

“Recommended.”

CM Magazine

“In her latest novel, With Fearful Bravery, award-winning author Lynne Kositsky weaves a richly imagined community where unlikely companions become allies with a comradery born from hope, Shakespearean quotes, and the occasional magic trick … A brilliant coming of age story.”

National Reading Campaign

“Of all the books this reviewer has read about the Shanghai experience, and many of them are good, none has ever incorporated itself into my psyche as has this one.”

Jewish Book Council

“Kositsky provides a fresh perspective on WWII, and neatly captures the unsettling limbo that paralyzed so many families dislocated by the war. […] A brilliant coming of age story.”

Best Books for Kids and Teens

“This novel is recommended for readers who enjoy stories about survival in difficult circumstances or young people during the Second World War.”

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