Waiting For Anya

The foothills of the French Pyrenees during the Second World War

Jo Lalande’s village is occupied by German soldiers guarding the frontier to neutral Spain

While he is tending his family’s flock of sheep (his father is absent, a prisoner of war), Jo follows a bear cub into the woods, where he spies a stranger

Following him to a remote hill-farm belonging to the reclusive widow, Madame Horcada, Jo learns their dangerous secret

Together they smuggle Jewish children, refugees from the war and the Holocaust, escaping over the border and into Spain

All the while, hoping against hope, they wait for their lost daughter and granddaughter, Anya

Sworn to secrecy, Jo risks everything – until the very German soldier he has befriended looks set to betray him

Michael Morpurgo’s war story celebrates the triumph of a spirited community who stubbornly resist their invading aggressor