Other editions of book Shanghai Shadows

A young girl fleeing Hitler takes refuge in Shanghai, where she learns that she must fight to survive Throughout tomboy Ilse’s childhood, her mother has tried to force her to behave like a proper Austrian lady. But when Hitler annexes their country, the family flees, boarding a packed freighter and sailing around the world in search of a safe harbor. The United States refuses to take them, so they proceed to China and make a new home in steamy, mysterious Shanghai. Their lodgings are cramped, money is tight, and Ilse’s father cannot find work—but Ilse is enchanted by the city’s international flavor. In Shanghai’s shadows she finds the adventure of a lifetime. When the Japanese occupy the city, Ilse and her brother begin working in an underground resistance cell. Each day, the city grows more dangerous, and Ilse must lie, cheat, and steal in order for her family to eat. She is a long way from Austria, but she will do whatever it takes to survive.

A young girl fleeing Hitler takes refuge in Shanghai, where she learns that she must fight to survive Throughout tomboy Ilse’s childhood, her mother has tried to force her to behave like a proper Austrian lady. But when Hitler annexes their country, the family flees, boarding a packed freighter and sailing around the world in search of a safe harbor. The United States refuses to take them, so they proceed to China and make a new home in steamy, mysterious Shanghai. Their lodgings are cramped, money is tight, and Ilse’s father cannot find work—but Ilse is enchanted by the city’s international flavor. In Shanghai’s shadows she finds the adventure of a lifetime. When the Japanese occupy the city, Ilse and her brother begin working in an underground resistance cell. Each day, the city grows more dangerous, and Ilse must lie, cheat, and steal in order for her family to eat. She is a long way from Austria, but she will do whatever it takes to survive.

It's 1939, and the Shpann family has escaped their home in hopes of a better life in occupied China. Ilse, her brother, and their parents are shocked at the small size of their new lodgings, in which they practically live on top of each other and their neighbors; only then does Ilse start to realize that their life here as stateless refugees will be far more harsh than expected. Their family strains to make end meet as her mother finds only part-time work in a bakery, while her musician father cannot find work at all. Ilse soon learns that her brother, Erich, has joined REACT, an underground resistance organization that masterminds sabotage missions and smuggles information. She fears for her brother's safety, but craves adventure herself and talks her way into running occasional missions, as a gutsy if unlikely spy. Life grows tighter and tighter for the Shpanns as they are forced to relocate to Shanghai's Jewish ghetto, but the family always manages to take solace in one another--that is until a mother's secret threatens to tear them all apart. In this gripping historical novel from Lois Ruby, a young gril struggles to grow up while her family struggles just to survive as European Jews against the unforgiving and alien backdrop of World War II China.