Description
West Jerusalem, early June 1967. Ten-year-old Mira Levi and her best friend Gili Moser share an awful secret. They have discovered a new radio station called The Voice of Thunder. Broadcasting from Cairo in accented Hebrew, it threatens the obliteration of Israel: “We will throw you and your whole country into the sea. We will march in your streets and into your homes.” On June 5 the attack begins and Mira and Gili’s school is hit. War has begun.
The two friends and their families are confined to a basement shelter of their apartment complex while the war continues above. Mira, afraid of what might happen and worried about her father fighting on the front, prays for safety. As the international crisis unfolds, Mira struggles to verbalize her concerns about family, friendship and the future of her nation. Only in her diary can she express her fears that none of them will survive this conflict.
“Breen adeptly juxtaposes the ordinary events of day-to-day life with the more dramatic events of a country on the brink of—and later entering—war. Told in the third person, the novel follows Mira’s story from a somewhat distant remove, though her occasional diary entries help show her own perspective.” –Kirkus Reviews
