A beautiful tale singed by sparks of magical realism unfolds in Ramona Ausubel's stunning debut, No One Is Here Except All of Us. It is 1939 in Zalischik, a remote Jewish village in Romania where, despite its seclusion from the outside world, war is closing in. When a mysterious woman--the victim of a pogrom and only survivor from her family--washes up on the riverbank, the villagers determine that something must be done to prevent the war from reaching their homes. At the suggestion of the stranger and Lena, an 11-year-old girl, they decide to stay in the village and start over, unlearning everything that they knew and recording prayers instead of history. In the rebuilding of their world, the residents seek to right all the wrongs. Clocks, typewriters and anything else the villagers aren't supposed to know about are thrown into the river; spouses are swapped and children are reassigned. For a few years this plan is successful, but when the war finally marches into their world and demands to be acknowledged, Lena, now a young wife and mother, must set out on a treacherous journey to save her husband and children.
Experimentally alternating between first and third person, Ausubel molds and transforms compelling characters whose unconventional yet decisive actions guide the tale. Drawing partly on her own family history, her writing alternates between elegance and lyricism in a moving narrative that, at its heart, underscores the importance of stories and the people who survive to tell them. --Sarah Borders, librarian at Houston Public Library