Ravel, Edeet

"Ripped from his home in Eastern Europe, with his father imprisoned in a Siberian gulag, twelve-year-old Natt finds himself stranded with other deportees in a schoolyard in Novosibirsk. And he is about to discover that life can indeed get worse than the horrific two months he and his mother have spent being transported on a bug-infested livestock train. He needs to write to his best friend, Max, but he knows the Soviet police reads everyone's mail. So Natt decides to write in code, and his letters are a lifeline, even though he never knows whether Max will receive them. Every day becomes a question of survival, and where they might be shunted to next. When his mother is falsely arrested for stealing potatoes, Natt is truly on his own and must learn how to live the uncertain life of an exile. Practice being invisible as a ghost, change your name and identity if you have to, watch out for spies, and never draw the attention of the authorities. Even then, he will need luck on his side if he is ever going to be reunited with his family"--Provided by publisher.

"[Relates] the story of a child of war torn from the country and home he knows and loves, amid the swirling confusion of political upheaval, violence and personal loss. Based on a true story about a young boy who was exiled to Siberia as a child during the Second World War"--Back cover.

Fern, who lives in poverty with her mother and cat, Beauty, and struggles at school, writes to Xanoth, her imaginary friend, and when her mother dies of a heart attack, she starts to take care of herself, working odd jobs and saving every penny, and when things fall apart, she finds out she is not really on her own.

Seventeen-year-old Chloe, vacationing in Greece, struggles to remain calm when she is drugged, kidnapped, and held in a warehouse pending a prisoner exchange.