Eva Weaverová

V nejtěžších chvílích lidského života musí existovat naděje. A někdy se tato naděje vtělí do malého kluka, který je vyzbrojen loutkami… Varšava 1939. Mika žije s rodinou v ghettu. Když zemře jeho dědeček Jakob, zdědí vnuk tajemný kabát, ve kterém objeví loutku. Vyrobil ji děda, stejně jako loutky krokodýla, krále a šaška. Mika začne loutky sám vyrábět, hrát pro obyvatele ghetta a vytvářet v čase strachu a klíčící beznaděje okamžiky radosti a zapomnění na děsivou válku. Jednoho dne chlapce nachytá německý voják Max. Pokud se chce Mika zachránit, musí hrát i pro Němce…

'Have you ever looked deep into the eyes of a reindeer? It's like a magical mirror. First you glimpse the tundra and everything the reindeer sees, but when you look deeper, you can see so much more - some people even see omens. It changes you, looking into a reindeer's eye.'Shortly after her sixteenth birthday, Ritva is sent away to Seili - a remote island to the south of Finland. A former leper colony, Seili is now home to 'hopeless cases' - women who have been outcast from society. But Ritva can't understand why her father has allowed her to be taken there, and she longs to be reunited with her little sister.Hope arrives in the form of Martta, a headstrong girl who is a Sami, and who reminds Ritva of her lost mother and her tales - of Vaja the reindeer, the stolen sealskin, and of a sacred drum hidden long ago. When Ritva and Martta decide to escape, there is only one place that calls to them. And so they begin the long journey North, to the land of the Sami, in search of healing and forgiveness...

I was twelve when the coat was made. Nathan, our tailor and dear friend, cut it for Grandfather in the first week of March 1938. It was the last week of freedom for Warsaw and for us...Even in the most difficult of lives, there is hope. And sometimes that hope comes in the form of a small boy, armed with a troupe of puppets - a prince, a girl, a fool, a crocodile with half-painted teeth...When Mika's grandfather dies in the Warsaw ghetto, he inherits not only his great coat, but its treasure trove of secrets. In one remote pocket, he finds a papier mache head, a scrap of cloth...the prince. And what better way to cheer the cousin who has lost her father, the little boy who his ill, the neighbours living in one cramped room, than a puppet show? Soon the whole ghetto is talking about the puppet boy - until the day when Mika is stopped by a German officer and is forced into a secret life...This is a story about survival. It is an epic journey, spanning continents and generations, from Warsaw to the gulags of Siberia, and two lives that intertwine amid the chaos of war. Because even in wartime, there is hope...