By the time WWII ended in Europe, the Blumenthal family–Marion, her brother Albert, and their parents–had lived in a succession of refugee, transit, and prison camps for more than six years, not only surviving but staying together. This memoir is written in spare, powerful prose that vividly depicts the endless degradation and humiliation suffered by the Holocaust’s innocent victims, as well as the unending horror of life in the camps.
To the outside world, Tom Pryne is an orphan traveling Elizabethan England with his uncle-s theater troupe. In actuality, -Tom- is Viola, in disguise because her parents- Catholic sympathies have put them at odds with the law and forced them into hiding. When the troupe arrives in the sleepy little town of Stratford-on-Avon, Viola-s uncle is arrested for murder, and she joins forces with young Will Shakespeare, a local boy with a penchant for trouble and a smart turn of phrase, to uncover the real culprit.