Freedom Train

The breathtaking memoir by a member of "Nicky's family", a group of 669 Czechoslovakian children who escaped the Holocaust through Sir Nicholas Winton's Kindertransport project. My Train to Freedom relates the trials and achievements of award-winning humanitarian and former Episcopal priest Ivan Backer.

A lifeline appears when Japanese consul Sugihara offers them visas on one condition: they must deliver a parcel to Tokyo. Inside lies intelligence on Nazi atrocities, evidence so explosive that Nazi and Soviet agents will stop at nothing to possess it. Pursued across Siberia on the Trans-Siberian Express, Zofia faces danger at every turn, racing to expose the truth as Japan edges closer to allying with the Nazis. With the fate of countless lives hanging in the balance, can she complete her mission before time runs out?

After a harrowing journey to Canada, Elsa and her friends are safe, but the need to free their homeland from GreenCorps domination forces them back into danger. With renewed hope, they return to join the rebels. Some sneak into SoCal to free Elsa's family, others lead teams to collect seeds from the bunkers, and others bring hope to the populace and free the downtrodden. Like Elsa, Janna grew up in SoCal, but instead of escaping, her brother sold her as a prostitute.

After a childhood marked by neglect, poverty, and periods of homelessness, with a mother who believed herself to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, Carrot Quinn moved out on her own. She found a sense of belonging among straight-edge anarchists who taught her how to traverse the country by freight trains, sleep in fields under the stars, and feed herself by foraging in dumpsters. Her new life was one of thrilling adventure and freedom, but still she was haunted by the ghosts of her lonely and traumatic childhood.

Our Christian Wagon Train of Freedom: Christ has Set Us Free on the Oregon Trail, is the story of Maria, who travels along the Oregon Trail with her sister to meet Levi, her future husband and a rancher in California. Managing to survive the tests that a wagon train can give to a young woman unused to manual labor, she arrives at Levi's ranch with a surprise. A few family slaves accompany her and Levi tells her clearly that they won't be slaves on his ranch.

A man, out for prayers, is found dead by a river bank and the listener is off to the races in this relentlessly paced twentieth century chronicle. Strong female characters like the coprotagonist, contrast the story to its provocative title, who is a strong, independent woman who would stop at nothing to achieve what she believes in. Human irrationality is front and center in this historical fiction theater.

Through a lyrical narrative of her journey to Tibet in 2007, activist Canyon Sam contemplates modern history from the perspective of Tibetan women. Traveling on China's new "Sky Train", she celebrates Tibetan New Year with the Lhasa family whom she'd befriended decades earlier and concludes an oral-history project with women elders.