World War, 1939-1945--Germany--Fiction;Young women--Germany--Fiction;Mormons--Germany--Fiction;Mormons--Fiction.
In 1939, Lisel Spann is a lively sixteen-year-old, LDS, German girl who, like other girls her age, has wonderful dreams for the future. She lives with her father and older sister and brother in a small apartment in Berlin. Together they share a spirit of love and security that seems unbreakable.
However, with the rise of the Nazi Party and the approaching dark clouds of war, their future begins to look uncertain. Lisel, knowing little of hate and destruction, is hardly prepared for the coming years when the storm erupts in full fury. She fights feelings of hopelessness as she watches the Nazis tear her loved ones from her life. Before her eyes, her beautiful city is turned to rubble under the allied bombs. As disillusionment, fear and despair rise to overwhelm her, it is her quiet, compassionate father who reminds her again of hope, faith, and repentance.
Lisel's final test comes when she, at age twenty-one, and her resourceful neighbor, Frau Heidemann, flee Berlin and the advancing Russians. They attempt to reach the safety of the American lines and Frankfurt, where she hopes to find her sister, Marta. The journey is filled with pain, hunger and terror. But with the spiritual lessons she learned from her father, the blessing she had at his hand promising the support of her departed loved ones, and her tried but undying faith in a loving Heavenly Father, Lisel—like the fireweed, which sprouts strong and beautiful from the fire-ravaged ground—turns her pain and agony into a charity that never faileth. [from author web site]