A fairytale-like novel set during the height of World War II finds a childless, impoverished woodcutter's wife risking her safety to take in and protect a Jewish baby, a twin abandoned under desperate circumstances.

"In the spring of 1942, young Elzbieta Rabinek is aware of the swiftly growing discord just beyond the courtyard of her comfortable Warsaw home. She has no fondness for the Germans who patrol her streets and impose their curfews, but has never given much thought to what goes on behind the walls that contain her Jewish neighbors. She knows all too well about German brutality--and that it's the reason she must conceal her true identity. But in befriending...