The Blood Years

Elana K. Arnold is the award-winning author of many books for children and teens, including The House That Wasn't There, the Printz Honor winner Damsel, the National Book Award finalist What Girls Are Made Of, and the Global Read Aloud selection A Boy Called Bat. She is a member of the faculty at Hamline University's MFA in writing for children and young adults program, and lives in Long Beach, CA, with her husband, two children, and a menagerie of animals. You can find her online at www.elanakarnold.com.

"This book is many things: an examination of love and duty, a revelatory account of a Holocaust experience many won't know, and a wrenching coming-of-age story. A moving glimpse into a past that is an all-too-possible vision of our future." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Arnold confronts tough subjects via unflinching depictions of war and compassionate renderings of intense familial drama. Searing." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Arnold's gripping novel of sisterhood and survival amid both Soviet and Nazi occupation illuminates a little-explored part of the Holocaust in Romania. A must-read." - School Library Journal (starred review)

"Extraordinary. This beautifully written novel juxtaposes passages of transcendent insight with terrible loss. An excellent choice for readers of Monica Hesse and Ruta Sepetys, and a first purchase for all teen collections." - Booklist (starred review)

"Arnold's compelling and well-researched narrative is deeply personal, respectful, and redemptive; through story, she bears witness. Her depiction of Rieke's experiences allows readers to truly feel how the horrors of war give the character many reasons to hate as well as to discover her enormous capacity to love." - Horn Book (starred review)

"Each page of this extraordinary story teems with nerve-tingling, edge-of-your-seat anxiety. A riveting addition to the Holocaust-literature canon." - Jewish Book Council

"The Blood Years gives us tragically underrepresented history viewed through a lens of love. Devastating and beautiful." - Ruta Sepetys, New York Times-bestselling author of I Must Betray You

"Ferocious and delicate, brilliant and emotional, The Blood Years is a finely wrought portrait of love and betrayal and what it costs to survive the unimaginable." -