It is goodbye to a Berlin wild, wicked, breathtaking, decadent beyond belief and already -- in the years between the wars -- welcoming death in through the door, though more with a wink than a whimper.~from the back cover

    Suppose that without your noticing, it became dangerous for some people to live in Germany any longer. Suppose you found, to your complete surprise, that your own father was one of those people.That is what happened to Anna in 1933. She was nine years old when it began, too busy with her schoolwork and toboganning to take much notice of political posters, but out of them glared the face of Adolf Hitler, the man who would soon change the whole of Europe – starting with her own small life.Anna suddenly found things moving too fast for her to understand. One day, her father was unaccountably missing. Then she herself and her brother Max were being rushed by their mother, in alarming secrecy, away from everything they knew – home and schoolmates and well-loved toys – right out of Germany…

    The Klondike at the turn of the century is filled with greedy prospectors for gold, wild Indians, and savage wolves. Buck becomes a sled dog and must learn cunning and toughness to survive. Trained by a master he comes to love, Buck becomes the strongest and fiercest sled dog in all of Alaska. But deep inside Buck feels the urge to be free of man's rule and to heed "the call of the wild."--back cover