Pulling my radiation mask out of my pocket, my rough hands snagged the fine gauze. How could such a thin weave protect me from death? You can't see radiation, or smell it, or feel it. Could a mask stop it so easily?
Nyle's life with her grandmother on their Vermont sheep farm advances rhythmically through the seasons until the night of the accident at the Cookshire nuclear power plant. Without warning, Nyle's modest world fills with protective masks, evacuations, contaminated food, disruptions, and mistrust. Things become even more complicated when Ezra Trent and his mother, refugees from the heart of the accident, take temporary shelter in the back bedroom of Nyle's house. The back bedroom is the dying room: It took her mother when Nyle was six; it stole away her grandfather just two years ago. Now, Ezra is back there and Nyle doesn't want to open her heart to him. Too many times she's let people in, only to have them desert her. If she lets herself care for Ezra, she knows he'll end up leaving her, too.
妮尔和外婆生活在北哈佛山下的一个农场。库克郡一场突如其来的核泄漏事故让她们的生活发生了翻天覆地的变化。冷冰冰的口罩、被污染的食物、无休止的疏散和警报，以及人与人之间的相互猜疑充斥着她的生活。此时，外婆竟然又收留了由于核辐射造成、在生死线上挣扎的十五岁少年埃兹拉和他的妈妈。母子俩住进了妮尔家后面那间卧室。那间卧室是妮尔的妈妈和外公病逝的地方——妮尔从不踏进那个房间。十三岁的妮尔，该如何面对徘徊在生死边缘、需要人照顾的埃兹拉……她，又能否从她所爱的人相继离开的伤痛中获得新生呢？
By Karen Hesse, Paperback, Simplified Chinese Character, 207 pages, 8.1"x5.6"
