World That We Knew

In 1941 Berlin, a desperate mother pays a rabbi's daughter to create a golem — a being made of river clay and animated by ritual — to protect her daughter Lea as she flees to France. The golem, Ava, develops a fierce, almost maternal devotion to Lea that outlasts any human bond, following her through hidden farmhouses, resistance networks, and narrow escapes as the war closes in.

Alice Hoffman folds her signature magical realism into a grounded account of Jewish flight and resistance in occupied France, tracing a found family of refugees, resistance fighters, and one uncanny protector bound together by loss and survival.