Astronaut!

Once upon a time—1989, to be exact—there was a girl who loved colors and who couldn't seem to stop telling the truth in a town where almost everyone wished she would just stay quiet. Lia is eight years old, Nicolae Ceausescu has been running Romania for about four times that long, and few people imagine anything else is possible. Lia doesn't mean to cause trouble, but her fresh frankness in a gray, suspicious time makes her a magnet for it, and meanwhile an apparent serial killer—a bear? a man?—is on the loose, raising suspicions even higher and rousing Constantin, a wearily honorable small-town cop, from his torpor. A fable, a whodunit, and a wry comedy all at once, Astronaut! reminds us how dangerous, and how powerful, small acts of rebellion can be.