What qualities are needed when your life is in danger, not merely once or twice, but on several occasions? As author Myriam Miedzian shows in this richly detailed story of the lives of her Polish-Jewish father and family, it takes tenacity, forethought, ingenuity, strength, and courage. During World War I, the anti-Semitic Polish authorities imprisoned young Henyek Miedzianagora and his father and brother on a trumped-up charge of spying for the Germans. Rebuffed by military authorities, Henyek's tenacious mother sought out a nobleman business acquaintance of her husband and persuaded him that a mistake had been made; with his help, her husband and sons were set free the day of their scheduled execution. It required courage when as a schoolboy, Henyek decided to go AWOL and risk being shot for desertion rather than experience the pointless slaughter of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-21. In 1930, Henyek moved to Belgium, where he married and had two children. His awareness of the fragility of existence in a world that can turn hostile at any moment--a legacy no doubt of his early harrowing experiences--led him to leave Brussels immediately on May 10, 1940 when the Germans attacked Belgium, and not turn back. The family eventually reached New York--via France, Spain, and Morocco, where they spent close to a year. Henyek had the extraordinary foresight, in 1936, to deposit $10,000 in a bank account in the United States, just in case. . . . Sure enough, the money made it possible to obtain visas to the U.S. In a bravura performance of recollection, reimagination, and characterization, Myriam Miedzian relates the incredible story of her father's three passages from peril to safety in her father's voice. Completing this work of generations, Myriam's daughter, Nadia Malinovich, a professor of Jewish history, fleshes out the historical and cultural background of her grandfather and, indeed, great-grandfather's life in Poland and Belgium during the first half of the twentieth century.

Betty Bard MacDonald (1907–1958), the best-selling author of The Egg and I and the classic Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle children’s books, burst onto the literary scene shortly after the end of World War II. Readers embraced her memoir of her years as a young bride operating a chicken ranch on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, and The Egg and I sold its first million copies in less than a year. The public was drawn to MacDonald’s vivacity, her offbeat humor, and her irreverent take on life. In 1947, the book was made into a movie starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert, and spawned a series of films featuring MacDonald's Ma and Pa Kettle characters. MacDonald followed up the success of The Egg and I with the creation of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, a magical woman who cures children of their bad habits, and with three additional memoirs: The Plague and I (chronicling her time in a tuberculosis sanitarium just outside Seattle), Anybody Can Do Anything (recounting her madcap attempts to find work during the Great Depression), and Onions in the Stew (about her life raising two teenage daughters on Vashon Island). Author Paula Becker was granted full access to Betty MacDonald’s archives, including materials never before seen by any researcher. Looking for Betty MacDonald, a biography of this endearing Northwest storyteller, reveals the story behind the memoirs and the difference between the real Betty MacDonald and her literary persona. Watch the book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lr6iVK4zWk