Who Owns The Clouds h/c back

Quietly commanding your complete attention, I found this measured performance utterly arresting; profoundly poignant and pertinent to this day.

Appositely, the writing is succinct as a child's, accompanied by sequential spot-illustrations very much like those on the cover.

Dubois deploys what initially looks like particularly cosy, conventional Victoriana - like our young, demurely dressed narrator - repurposed to harrowing effect. Think family ensembles or nursery rhyme picture books... the cats in the rubble, the homes all ablaze.

These helpless victims of man's relentless, dismissive assault upon man, woman and child could be any of the millions made homeless and homeland-less over the centuries. They most certainly could be Ukranians, and any second now they could even be you.

A Junior Library Guild selection written by Quebec-based two-time winner of the Governor General's Literary Award, the publisher says this:

"Even though Mila is no longer a child, she is overcome by memories - memories of a childhood halfway between reality and dreaming, and not knowing which is which. In her dreams, Mila and her family leave their bombed village to stand in line for weeks on end, suitcases in hand, hoping to move on to better lives.

But the memories of her uncle's disappearance, and the approach of looming clouds, keep blurring the lines between past and present, real and unreal. How can Mila move forward? Perhaps if the clouds can remind her of where she's from, they can also show her where to go."