Winner of the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Prize

Award-winning writer Katrina Nannestad transports us to Russia and the Great Patriotic War and into the life of Sasha, a soldier at only six years old …    

Wood splinters and Mama screams and the nearest soldier seizes her roughly by the arms. My sister pokes her bruised face out from beneath the table and shouts, ‘Run, Sasha! Run!’    

So I run. I run like a rabbit.   

It’s spring, 1942. The sky is blue, the air is warm and sweet with the scent of flowers. And then everything is gone.    

The flowers, the proud geese, the pretty wooden houses, the friendly neighbours. Only Sasha remains. But one small boy, alone in war-torn Russia, cannot survive.    

One small boy without a family cannot survive. One small boy without his home cannot survive. What that small boy needs is an army.    

From the award-winning author of We Are Wolves comes the story of a young boy who becomes a soldier at six, fighting in the only way he can – with love. But is love ever enough when the world is at war?