Anna's Goat

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

Anna’s Goat is a story of hardship and a nanny goat who provides milk,
warmth, and love to two little girls while their mother works in a local
munitions factory and their father has to work in another village.

At last the war is over. Anna, her sister, and parents begin the long
journey home by foot and train. The city to which they return—the
once-beautiful city of Mother’s dreams and stories—has been bombed
into rubble. Lucky people are finding small treasures in the ruins. When
Anna asks for a treasure, Mother can turn up only a small, ragged towel.
It serves to remind the child of the nanny goat that kept her and her
sister alive in a desolate country. Years later, Anna goes to Canada and
sculpts “wonderful things” out of clay. The story encapsulates the
refugee experience.

Anna’s Goat is the first children’s book by Janice Kulyk Keefer, a
prize-winning author of adult fiction, poetry, and literary criticism.
Janet Wilson is an award-winning illustrator of many children’s books.
Her large and effective paintings in sombre-toned pastels depict a grim
world and a bitter era, yet this world includes flashes of hope, love,
and laughter. Highly recommended.