SOLVED. WW2 historical fiction about a young girl who has to cross the mountains (perhaps French) to get to safety. A man helps her and she shows him a wooden figure she received from her parents.

[Aleksandra]

At one point the man and girl pass a Nazi truck and he pretends to be her father and that she needed a loo break. Eventually, she gets to her Grandparents in the country and stays with them. I think the girl is about twelve and she reads a lot. Her mother may have died. She hadn't seen her parents since she was very young.

I read the book in 2013 and the author is most likely a British man.

SPOILER BELOW:








The man/shepherd who helped her turns out to be her real father.

[Aleksandra]

BOOK FOUND: Heart of Resistance