Notes

1982, Melbourne Australia. Lisa is in Year 10 at Glenrock Secondary School and she’s been dating a nice looking guy called Adam Winter for the past two months.Inkflower Book Review Cover He’s kind and Lisa is excited about being his girlfriend. Lisa’s best friend Deb is never far away, and they’re really close, always laughing and having fun.

Lisa is going to need them both, because her dad – the mayor of their town, tells his family he only has 6 months to live.

She can’t believe it. She won’t believe it. Pushing the thought of her loud, strong, popular dad being sick aside, she wants everything to be the same as it was before he spoke those words. Dad doesn’t look sick, but he explains he has motor neurone disease and his muscles will slowly stop working. But that’s not all. He has more to tell them. Something he has kept from them their whole lives. They are Jewish, and he was sent with his family, neighbours and friends to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp when he was 13.

Every Friday, instead of staying at Debs like she always did, Lisa joins her two older brothers and Mum to listen to her Dad’s story of his childhood. At first she can’t take it in. She hides it from her friends and boyfriend – wanting something to stay how it was before her world began to fall apart. The more Dad tells them, the more she understands why he hid it. She is watching her father disappear before her eyes, as his own father did in the Camp. But the more her father fights the disease, without anger or remorse or negativity, the more she sees his strength, courage and love for his family.


Based on a true story