This novel is about a young girl, Sis, whose brother, Danny, went to fight in WWII. German POWs are shipped to her small Nebraska town to work the harvest. Sis and her family pour over letters trying to figure out where Danny was fighting. Sis helped with the war effort, collecting scrap, doing air-raid drills, and sending her friend's dog to the canine corps. She befriends one of the German POWs, Horst, who helps her understand that Germans are people. But when her brother comes home shell shocked, she informs the Lager Gestapo of Horst's fraternizing with Americans. The commander orders Horst blinded and the bird Horst helped Sis saved, killed and mutilated. It explores how far hate, fear, and misunderstandings brought on by war propaganda will take a person, and asks: can those events ever be forgiven.
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