Alan, a Jewish boy living in New York in 1944, loves playing stickball after school with his friends more than anything else in his world. Then, Naomi, a "crazy" girl, a Jewish refugee from France, moves into his building. When his parents ask him to spend time with Naomi after school, Alan does so with great reluctance. The two begin an unlikely, deep friendship that bolsters the fragile Naomi, challenges Alan's sense of self and almost breaks through the horror of Naomi's unspeakable war-time experience. At times very funny, most often very sad, this historical novel poignantly portrays the magnificence and limits of one effort to face down the violence of racism and war.

When Naomi, a refugee child from Nazi-occupied Paris who acts ‘crazy,’ moves into Alan Silverman’s building in New York, he does his best to avoid her. They slowly develop a deep and touching friendship "[which] is a joy [in] this warming story with its heart-wrenching ending. One of the more honest approaches to the repercussions of WW II" —SLJ.

1978 Boston Globe—Horn Book Award Honor Book for Fiction
1978 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)
1978 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Honor Book
Children's Books of 1977 (Library of Congress)
1969-1992 Best of the Best Books for Young Adults