Memior of growing up in Poland during the Holocaust years.

Meet Eva. Her US-educated parents had a dream to raise their family in a spiritual and naturalist style in the mountains of the Andes. Eva and her brother laugh, love, play, and work very hard while encountering other souls in their beloved forest, growing ever mindful the presence of a larger world. A daring journey begins for Eva as events catalyze unexpected separation from her family and catapult her as an outsider into a modern US city. The contrast of her lively, whimsical yet spiritual approach to life and her new urban surroundings unfold a tapestry of modern social issues humorously and insightfully. Through fresh perspective, grace, determination, and a little bit of luck, she embraces the unknown courageously. She interrelates with friends and people in her social community, solving the puzzles of her family and her own identity. Ultimately, she discovers life, friendship, love, and the oddities and treasures of our modern culture.

Rich, spoilt, high-maintenance Eva Gordon likes fancy, sophisticated things so when her parents sell their sell their holiday home and their expensive car Eva can't understand why. But when Eva's dad loses his job and she has to move house and change schools, she realises life has changed for good. She's determined to hate her new life, until a chance visit to a fortune teller gives her the idea that doing good may help her to get her old life back. Eva (with the help of her friend Victoria) starts to help all around her, whether they want it or not! The story of Eva's Journey from spoilt princess to pretty cool girl!

In Because of Eva, an American Jewish woman travels to Eastern Europe and Israel to solve mysteries in her family’s past by delving into World War II and Holocaust history. What began as a seemingly simple search for “Eva,” the elderly relative who had signed Gordon's grandfather's death certificate in New York long ago, became a journey of discovery when Gordon found her in Tel Aviv. There, she heard Eva’s stories of survival during the Holocaust, especially in Nazi-occupied Budapest. Eventually, Gordon would retrace Eva’s steps in Budapest and visit ancestral towns in Ukraine to bear witness to the slaughter of entire populations of Jews. Amid remnants of loss and destruction in the small town where her grandfather was born, Gordon also uncovered details of her family’s world before relatives immigrated to America. Gordon’s journey into her past provided the deep sense of connection and belonging she needed as an adult child of divorce and abuse. Gaining insight about her family’s history, Gordon reconciles issues of betrayal and loyalty, and finally finds her place in Judaism. Part memoir, part detective story, Because of Eva is an intimate tale of one woman’s history within the epic sweep of world events in the twentieth century.

Eva and her immigrant family live between the railroad tracks and Fort Wayne, the military base along the Detroit River in the fifties. Eva lives on a multicultural street and grows up with many wonderful types of people. Her neighborhood in the first book covers the lives of neighbors and friends and her brother’s tragic little friend, Danny. Eva and Leo grow up together, sharing a sadly dysfunctional family life, but there are good moments and some heart-ending times. The summertime was the highlight of their world at Detroit’s Boblo Boat rides, the beautiful jewel of the city, Belle Isle, where families picnicked and swam at the beaches and rode across the Belle Isle ferry boat. The second part is Eva’s life and how the road leads to growing up and becoming strong in the face of sorrow and tragedy.

From the Publisher: Many know the tragic story of Anne Frank, the teen whose life ended at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. But most people don't know about Eva Schloss, Anne's playmate and posthumous stepsister. Though Eva, like Anne, was imprisoned in Auschwitz at the age of 15, her story did not end there. Together with her mother, Eva endured daily degradation at the hands of the Nazis. She survived the prison camps, but it would be decades before Eva was able to tell her survivor's tale. Concluding with a revealing new interview with Eva, this moving memoir recounts without bitterness or hatred the horrors of war, the love between mother and daughter, and the strength and determination that helped a family overcome danger and tragedy.

Sent with her governess to live with the dreadful Carter family in exotic Brazil in 1910, Maia endures many hardships before fulfilling her dream of exploring the Amazon River.