Notes

ALA 2012 Best Fiction for young adults.
In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother and brother are taken from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp. While Lina fights to survive, she begins creating pictures that can - she hopes - be secretly sent to him. Whether or not he receives them, it is her art that will be her salvation, helping her to retain her identity, her dignity, and her hold on hope for the future. Many others are not so fortunate.