Excerpt from They Went Left by Monica Hesse, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Dima steps forward. "Zofia doesn't have more names; she's not well."

"I can do it," I protest, but I'm not even sure what I mean by it. I can keep standing in this line? I can be well again?

The official woman adds my records to her pile. Dima extends his hand, and I accept it. I fold myself into the passenger side of his jeep and allow him to arrange his coat over my lap while Nurse Urbaniak makes sure the bundle of food is secure on the floorboard.

What I should have told the official woman is this: I know I don't need to put anyone else on my list, because when the soldiers sorted my family, they sent us all to Birkenau. And when we got to Birkenau, there was another line dividing into two. In that line, the lucky people were sent to hard labor. The unlucky people—we could see the smoke. The smoke was the burning bodies of the unlucky people.

In that line, Abek and I were sent to the right.

On this continent, I need to find only one person. I need to go home, I need to survive, I need to keep my brain working for only one person.

Because everyone else: Papa, Mama, Baba Rose, beautiful Aunt Maja—all of them, all of them, as the population of Sosnowiec was devastated—they went left.

Excerpted from They Went Left by Monica Hesse. Copyright © 2020 by Monica Hesse. Excerpted by permission of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.