Arma is a teen who is living in Bosnia in 1992. Her world is changing as people start to treat her differently because of her religious beliefs. This persecution continues as Serbia rolls tanks into Bosnia which brings war to the hometown she loves. Arma finds peace and comfort in stray cat during this difficult time.

The narrator of this book helped me stay intrigued. She read with great inflection and helped me really envision what Arma was going through.

Amra Sabric- El-Rayess survived a racial ethnical cleansing. Rayess moved to the US in 1996 and wrote about her experience being a survivor.

Non-fiction titles can be difficult to recommend to teens because they are labeled as “boring” or “slow” but this book is the opposite. It creates feeling of sadness, being afraid, lonely, and also falling in love, happiness, and safety. This book is meaningful right now because of the circumstances in Ukraine and the refugees that are fleeing because of the war. Teens should be exposed to these types of novels to help bring what is happening right now to reality and this book helped do that for me.

A way that a library could implement this title would be to challenge teens to come up with a project to help local refugees. Teens should be given opportunities to come up with and organize programs. This gives teens a sense of responsibility not only for the library but for the community. There are a lot of different volunteer options they could suggest as well as fundraising or other impactful ideas.