by Chaim Potok
First published 1992
As Chinese and North Korean forces sweep south during the Korean War, an elderly peasant couple flees their village. They soon come across a wounded, unconscious boy in a ditch. Despite the husband's protests, the wife insists on taking the boy with them, compelled by a fierce protectiveness. As they trek through the ravaged landscape, the couple must decide whether to risk their lives for this stranger. When the boy miraculously survives, the old man begins to see him as a beacon of hope in the darkness of war.
Genres: fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, war
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, strangers-to-friends
Setting: China, Korea, North Korea
Period: Korean War
211 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: war