Ralph Manheim

Shy, awkward Bastian is amazed to discover that he has become a character in the mysterious book he is reading and that he has an important mission to fulfill.

In order to save her daughter from a terrible war, the mother sends her into the forest telling her to return in three days. She meets St. Joseph who cares for her for three days, which in reality is thirty years.

An escape story and a love story told by one refugee to another, in a Portuguese interlude in the World War II flight of refugees from Europe. The narrator is a German who returned to see his wife and bring her out of Germany, but tragedy strikes the two.