Janet Taylor Lisle Knihy

Fear permeates the Rhode Island coastal town where Robert, his mother, and sister are living out the war with his paternal grandparents: Fear of Nazi submarines offshore. Fear of Abel Hoffman, a German artist living reclusively outside of town. And for Robert, a more personal fear, of his hot-tempered, controlling grandfather.As Robert watches the townspeople's hostility toward Hoffman build, he worries about his sensitive cousin Elliot's friendship with the artist. And he wonders more and more about the family secret everyone seems to be keeping from him—a secret involving Robert's father, a bomber pilot in Europe. Will Elliot's ability to detach himself from the turmoil around him be enough to sustain him when prejudice and suspicions erupt into violence? And can Robert find his own way to deal with the shocking truth about his family's past?

Nine-year-old Walter has no memory of his mother, who died when he was a baby, yet Walter is sure she is speaking to him. The voice of her ghost comes softly to him at first. . .almost like thoughts running through his head. Then, magically, she speaks more clearly, leading him to a sad statue of the Little Match Girl in the park where his picture had been taken when he was a baby. When he finds mysterious items from his infancy left at the foot of the statue, he believes the Match Girl has the magic power to reveal the secret of who he is--and who his mother was. Yet it takes Walter's own powerful imagination and a little help from Juliette, the cat, for Walter to make a most amazing discovery.

A hard-bitten group of mangy highway cats is changed forever after the mysterious arrival of three kittens.