In 1941 twelve-year-old Karl is proud to be a member of the Hitler Youth, but when his father is killed on the Eastern Front everything changes--his family moves to the country to live with his grandparents, he encounters a brutal Gestapo officer, and he begins to realize that his sixteen-year-old brother has joined a youth group who opposes the Nazis.

"Every boy in Oskari's remote mountain village must face a ritual hunt on his thirteenth birthday--the Trial--to become a man. It's Oskari's turn, and whatever animal he kills--if he succeeds--will symbolize who he will become. But the idea of spending a night alone in the forest makes him queasy, and the ceremonial bow he has to use is too big for him. Not long after he sets out, Oskari comes across a strange creature in the woods, emerging in eerie...

In 1920s Russia, a deserter from the Red Army returns home to find his village empty, the men murdered, and the women and children gone, and searches the forests in the bitter cold, desperate to find his wife and sons.