Author Description

It was August 1968 and nine-year-old Anttonia Barten was enjoying her last day of summer camp in Bohemia, Czechoslovakia, when she was awakened by hundreds of planes soaring overhead. The Russians had officially invaded. In a gripping narrative, Anttonia chronicles her journey after her mother and stepfather kidnapped her and took her to Australia to escape the war, never telling her biological father. While detailing how they all embarked on a new life, she also began what would become a twenty-year search to find her father only to lose him to cancer just a year after they are reunited. Throughout her moving story, Anttonia reminds all of us that no matter what our challenges in life, we are strong enough to endure.