This book is about love and friendships and resilience in the face of suffering in the darkest year of the holocaust. The story starts with the main character Ella, who becomes known as Ella who sews. A young girl plucked off the street near her home and sent to Birchwood because she is Jewish. This is her story of the people she meets there all from different walks of life, and of the friendship between her and Rose who is there because of her family's politics. I loved the book and found the story engrossing and beautiful, what I did find off putting was the red ribbon on most of the pages as it made reading some of the words difficult to read. The significance of the red ribbon becomes apparent later in the story.