The main characters in this story are, Yoko, her sister Ko and their mother. This story is about the war [world war 2]. Yoko, Ko, and Mother are forced to flee their home in Japan forever. In their journey many awful things happen, bombing, shooting, seeing people die, but worst of all happens at the end, Mother dies. The girls move on with their lives. They start school and move in to an abandoned warehouse that their friend owns. They have to work very hard for food and clothing, but at the end they live.

There things Iíve learned about Asian history from this book are there was a very bad war that many people suffered from. Lots of people were killed, and lots of people went crazy. Three thing Iíve learned about daily life in Asia [during the war] are people had to hide who they really were to stay alive, there was almost never food or clothing, and people had to work as hard as they could just to stay alive.

There are tons of differences between my life and the life of the girl in this book. In this book the girl almost never has anything to eat or drink, I have as much as I want. Another is I can change in to new clothes anytime I want, the girl in this book couldnít. Two things I do the same as the girl in this book are, I fight I with my sibling and I also know what itís like to move from somewhere youíve lived for a long time.

The way political boundaries affected this book are if you are in one place you may be safe but in the next you might be in danger.

I liked this book. This book told me what life during the war was like because the author had to go through it. A bad thing about this stroy is the tragedy the author had to go through. This book wasnít boring because the author got straight to the point.