Author(s): Paulette Jiles

General

On a hot, dry day a four-year old girl named Raisa was taken out into a busy street by her parents and abandoned. As young Raisa is passed among orphanages and foster families, she is renamed Nadia Stepan and learns to don new personas as needed. She also learns to escape into the world of her imagination, a verdant place of freedom and adventure - things she is able to conjure thanks to the old, neglected books she read as a child. When an opportunity presents itself, she risks her life to escape to Lighthouse Island, where she certain her parents will be found...