"When Yukie Kimura was eight years old, her family lived on a tiny island near the coast of northern Japan, where her father was a lighthouse keeper. Her days were filled with adventure and nature: collecting seagull eggs to bake cookies, finding fresh seafood on the shore, and digging for fossils in a cave. But it was also 1945, the final year of World War II. Then, during one sunny weekend, bombs are dropped. The war ends soon after, but not for Yukie, who remembers the explosions and the classmates who never came back. She watches the sky and worries--until a miraculous sight finally allows her to feel free again."-- Front jacket flap.