One by one, things that Norm and his Japanese American family took for granted are taken away. In a matter of months they, along with everyone else of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, are forced by the government to move to internment camps, leaving everything they have known behind. At the Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming, Norm and his family live in one room in a tar paper barracks with no running water. There are lines for the communal bathroom and lines for the mess hall, and they live behind barbed wire and under the scrutiny of armed guards in watchtowers. Meticulously researched and informed by extensive interviews with Norm Mineta himself, this narrative sheds light on a little-known subject of American history. Andrea Warren covers the history of early Asian immigration to the United States and provides historical context for the U.S. government’s decision to imprison Japanese Americans alongside a deeply personal account of the sobering effects of that policy.

Between 1854 and 1930, more than 200,000 orphaned or abandoned children were sent west on orphan trains to find new homes. Some were adopted by loving families; others were not as fortunate. In recent years, some of the riders have begun to share their stories. Andrea Warren alternates chapters about the history of the orphan trains with the story of Lee Nailling, who in 1926 rode an orphan train to Texas.

“Think of it as a game, Jack…Play the game right and you might outlast the Nazis.”

Caught up in Hitler’s Final Solution to annihilate Europe’s Jews, fifteen-year-old Jack Mandelbaum is torn from his family and thrown into the nightmarish world of the concentration camps. Here, simple existence is a constant struggle, and Jack must learn to live hour to hour, day to day. Despite intolerable conditions, he resolves not to hate his captors and vows to see his family again. But even with his strong will to survive, how long can Jack continue to play this life-and-death game?

Award-winning author Andrea Warren has crafted an unforgettable true story of a boy becoming a man in the shadow of the Third Reich.