Marsha – Page 70 – Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

The Hill: Don’t read this book in bed

hill

Karen Bass has made a name for herself by writing well-researched and page-turning historical fiction from a post-WWII German teen’s point of view. What I love about her books is that she breathes life into bits of history that no one else is writing about and she does it with muscular aplomb and page-turning suspense.

The Hill is utterly different from anything Bass has written before. It’s a contemporary thriller about Jared, a rich spoiled teen whose plane crashes in remote northern Alberta, and Kyle, a Cree teen who witnesses the crash and comes to assist. The two protagonists are the same sex and age but that’s the sum of their similarities.

Jared survives the crash with just a concussion and his pilot is alive but injured. His cell phone has no service and he wants to get to the top of a nearby hill in order to light up a few bars on his phone. Kyle tells him that they cannot do that. It’s a forbidden place.

They go anyway.

There’s no cell service, and when they come back down, there’s no plane.

It turns out that by climbing the forbidden hill, the teens have slipped into a different dimension, and this alternate reality is a dangerous place populated with creatures from Cree legend. Now that they’ve slipped into this other dimension, how do they get out? Only by setting aside their differences can the boys puzzle that out and save themselves.

In less capable hands, the novel’s premise could be a disaster but Karen Bass anchors the fantasy element with such gritty, sore and smelly reality and such nail-biting terror that the reader has no choice but to be hooked.

I read this novel in a single long gulp because I could not put it down. And after I was finished, it stayed on my mind.

A phenomenal page-turner. Love the premise. Love the writing. Don’t read this book in bed.

Professional Reader

Don’t Tell The Nazis

Don't Tell the Enemy CVR — Scholastic Inc

Previously published in Canada as Don’t Tell the Enemy.

Krystia’s family is hiding Jews from the invading Nazis, but the risks are immense. How much will she risk for her friends? A gripping story based on true events.

During the Soviet occupation of Ukraine during World War II, some of Krystia’s family are harrassed; others are arrested and killed. When the Nazis liberate the town, they are welcomed with open arms. Krystia’s best friend Dolik isn’t so sure. His family is Jewish and there are rumours that the Nazis might be even more brutal than the Soviets.

Shortly after the Nazis arrive, they discover a mass grave of Soviet prisoners and blame the slaughter on the Jews. Soon, the Nazis establish ghettoes and begin public executions of Jews.

Krystia can’t bear to see her friends suffering and begins smuggling food into the ghetto. When rumours circulate that the ghetto will be evacuated and the Jews will be exterminated, Krystia must decide if she’s willing to risk her own family’s safety to save her friends.
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Adrift at Sea: A Vietnamese Boy’s Story of Survival

AdriftAtSea_website — The first picture book to recount the dramatic true story of a refugee family’s perilous escape from Vietnam

It is 1981. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a fishing boat overloaded with 60 Vietnamese refugees drifts. The motor has failed; the hull is leaking; the drinking water is nearly gone. This is the dramatic true story recounted by Tuan Ho, who was six years old when he, his mother, and two sisters dodged the bullets of Vietnam’s military police for the perilous chance of boarding that boat. Told to multi-award-winning author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch and illustrated by the celebrated Brian Deines, Tuan’s story has become Adrift At Sea, the first picture book to describe the flight of Vietnam’s “Boat People” refugees. Illustrated with sweeping oil paintings and complete with an expansive historical and biographical section with photographs, this non-fiction picture book is all the more important as the world responds to a new generation of refugees risking all on the open water for the chance at safety and a new life. Continue reading “Adrift at Sea: A Vietnamese Boy’s Story of Survival”

Unbound: Canadian Ukrainian Writing Home

What does it mean to be Ukrainian in contemporary Canada? The Ukrainian Canadian writers in Unbound challenge the conventions of genre – memoir, fiction, poetry, biography, essay – and the boundaries that separate ethnic and authorial identities and fictional and non-fictional narratives. These intersections become the sites of new, thought-provoking and poignant creative writing by some of Canada’s best-known Ukrainian Canadian authors.

To complement the creative writing, editors Lisa Grekul and Lindy Ledohowski offer an overview of the history of Ukrainian settlement in Canada and an extensive bibliography of Ukrainian Canadian literature in English. Unbound is the first such exploration of Ukrainian Canadian literature and a book that should be on the shelves of Canadian literature fans and those interested in the study of ethnic, postcolonial, and diasporic literature.

A Christmas to Remember

A Christmas To Remember is a wonderful seasonal anthology for Dear Canada readers, both old and new! A real treat for fans of this series, and all lovers of historical fiction!

Eleven stories that each revisit a favourite character from books in the Dear Canada series are included in this special collection. These are completely original tales that stand alone as heartwarming Christmas stories, but also serve as a lovely “next chapter” to their original books. Each story is written by one of Canada’s top award-winning writers for children, including Marsha Skrypuch, Jean Little, Sarah Ellis, Maxine Trottier, Carol Matas and more. This collection is a lovely companion to A Season of Miracles, and will be treasured year after year at holiday time!

Kobzar’s Children

This unique anthology introduces new voices and a century of hidden stories.

The kobzars were the blind minstrels of Ukraine, who memorized the epic poems and stories of 100 generations. Traveling around the country, they stopped in towns and villages along the way, where they told their tales and were welcomed by all. Under Stalin’s regime, the kobzars were murdered. As the storytellers of Ukraine died, so too did their stories.

Kobzar’s Children is an anthology of short historical fiction, memoirs, and poems written about the Ukrainian immigrant experience. The stories span a century of history; and they contain stories of internment, homesteading, famine, displacement, concentration camps, and this new century’s Orange Revolution. Edited by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Kobzar’s Children is more than a collection; it is a moving social document that honors the tradition of the kobzars and revives memories once deliberately forgotten.
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Call Me Aram

From the New Beginnings series, comes Call Me Aram, the sequel to Aram’s Choice. Aram Davidian, like his fellow orphaned Armenian refugees, is delighted with his new home on a farm in Georgetown, Ontario. But despite the excitement his new surroundings, Aram worries about his young friend Mgerdich, who was injured on the long trip to Canada and is recovering in France. And what is more worrying is that he and the other boys have been assigned new English names. How will their extended families find them one day if all the boys have new identities? Even when their translator assures them that their hosts want only the best for the boys, Aram cannot accept the name David Adams. When Mgerdich finally arrives at the farm, a relieved Aram finds the courage to lead the boys in a gentle revolt. Together, they must find a way to convince the Canadian adults that the boys, as grateful as they are for their new lives, cannot forget their old ones. Theymust keep their names.

Every incident in Call Me Aram is based on real events from the lives of the Georgetown Boys — from the boys’ reaction to porridge and cameras and weekly showers to their revolt to get their own names back. Marsha spent hundreds of hours listening to taped interviews of the original Georgetown Boys in order to glean these snippets of truth.
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Aram’s Choice

From the New Beginnings series, comes Aram’s Choice, a story that follows the life of a boy who loses his family in the Armenian genocide in Turkey and is exiled in Greece. The book follows Aram while he travels to Canada with forty-seven other Armenian boys in what was Canada’s first international humanitarian effort.

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch first heard about the Armenian Genocide seventeen years ago while doing research for a magazine article about the first “Georgetown Boys” — a group of 47 Armenian orphans who were rescued by Canada in 1923 and were housed and schooled at a farm in Georgetown, Ontario.

After interviewing the son of a “Georgetown Boy,” Marsha was left with more questions than answers. For example, why were all of the rescued orphans male? Why were they all between the ages of eight and twelve? What happened to their parents? What happened to their sisters?

After years of research, Marsha was able to write Aram’s Choice. Based on true events, this book gives children a chance to learn about effects of genocide through one that the Turkish government has long denied ever happened.

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch is the author of many books for children, including Silver Threads and Enough as well as her YA novels, The Hunger and Nobody’s Child, which was nominated for the Red Maple Award, the Alberta Rocky Mountain Book Award, and the B.C. Stellar Award.

Muriel Wood has been illustrating books for children since 1964, including the Canadian classic, The Olden Days Coat written by Margaret Laurence. Other books that she has illustrated include Old Bird, and the first two titles from the New Beginnings series, Lizzie’s Storm and Scared Sarah.
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The Best Gifts

The Best Gifts is the story of Sara and the important moments in her life. It starts with her birth and concludes when she welcomes her own baby. On each occasion, friends and family bring gifts to celebrate. In the end, though, the most cherished gifts are the ones that cannot be purchased. The first cherished gift Sara receives is her mother’s milk and the story comes full circle when she gives that same gift to her own baby.

Originally published in 1998, The Best Gifts has been fully revised, with all-new illustrations and updated breastfeeding resource information.

The Best Gifts has been a cherished baby book for fifteen years. This fully revised new edition with breathtakingly beautiful illustrations by Elly MacKay is sure to be cherished for generations to come.
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When Mama Goes to Work

When Mama Goes to Work follows several children and their working mothers as they move through their day. From morning to night, through the daily activities of work and play, children and parents keep each other in their thoughts even when they are apart.

Both children and parents will relate to the routine of work and play in When Mama Goes to Work. Secure in the knowledge that their mothers will return at the end of the day, confident children enjoy themselves and concentrate on learning and play while looking forward to being reunited with their mothers, when they will discuss their day, help with dinner, and other evening routines.
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