Excerpt from The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Shira rehearses the plan to move, if need be, from the barn to the root cellar — a ziemianka with the stork's nest above it, at the side of the farmhouse — where she is to wait for her mother on the floor behind the barrels, unmoving (no matter the cold or damp) for however long it takes: neck straight, not crooked, or else she'll get sore. She also rehearses what her mother told her over and over about her sounds, how they can be no louder than a whisper except when she says that it is safe, very late at night, to speak pianissimo rather than piano pianissimo. If her mother wakes her suddenly, she is not to raise her voice. She must control her breathing: no heaving sighs. Absolutely no sneezes.

Excerpted from The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner. Copyright © 2020 by Jennifer Rosner. Excerpted by permission of Flatiron Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.