Under the Broken Sky

A beautifully told middle-grade novel in verse about a Japanese orphan’s experience in occupied rural Manchuria during World War II. Twelve-year-old Natsu and her family live a quiet life on their farm in Manchuria, near the border of the Soviet Union. But the life they’ve known begins to unravel when her father is recruited to the Japanese army, and Natsu and her little sister, Cricket, are left orphaned and destitute. In a desperate move to keep her sister alive, Natsu sells Cricket to a Russian family following the 1945 Soviet occupation. The journey to redemption for Natsu's broken family is rife with struggles, but she is tenacious and will stop at nothing to get her little sister back. Literary and historically insightful, this is one of the great untold stories of World War II. Much like the Newbery Honor book Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, Under the Broken Sky is powerful, poignant, and ultimately hopeful.