writes about war from a young person's view #bannedbyrussia
Hearty congratulations to Dr. Mateusz Świetlicki for winning the 2025 book award for best monograph from the International Research Society for Children’s Literature for his groundbreaking work: Next-Generation Memory and Ukrainian Canadian Children’s Historical Fiction. The Seeds of Memory. This is the first book to explore Anglophone Ukrainian Canadian children’s historical fiction published between 1991 and 2021.
I got to read the backmatter for the Scholastic audiobook edition of Standoff, book #2 of my Kidnapped from Ukraine trilogy. Melanie Gagnon, the producer, arranged for me to do the recording at Catherine North Studios in Hamilton. Thanks, Emma Whale, producer/engineer for making the session such a great experience! This is the 8th time that I got to read my own backmatter!
Met JL Simpson MS’s fantastic 7th grade students (11 classes!) and their educators via google meets this morning and yesterday morning. Most were familiar with Winterkill, Enough and Making Bombs for Hitler. I spoke of my own struggles with reading when I was a kid and how failing 4th grade and how that shaped me as a writer. The students’ questions demonstrated a lot of empathy and awareness of world events. Here are some of my fave pics. Thank you, Jennifer Maulfair for organizing!
Ms Maulfair passed on this feedback from the sessions:
“The reason why I am giving the presentation a 5 star review is because when she was explaining all the things that had happened to her I could just imagine how much she went through, and I was really into it.” JL Simpson, 7th Grade student, Leesburg, VA
“It was interesting to hear about Ms. Skrypuch’s early life and all of her challenges as a child. She also did a great job of answering complicated questions in a simple way.” JL Simpson, 7th Grade student, Leesburg, VA
This gripping, accessible novel by celebrated Ukrainian Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch follows two sisters as they struggle to survive the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
12-year-old twin sisters Rada and Dariia Popkova couldn’t be more different. Dariia is outgoing and chatty while Rada is quieter and artsy. But what they have in common is their love for each other and their home. The family lives in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which is attacked by the Russians on Feb 24th, 2022. The attack separates the family — Dariia is with her mom and Rada with her dad.
The thrilling conclusion to this trilogy will have readers reaching for tissues on the edge of their seats.
Reviews
“Throughout the poignant story, the Popkova family meets many people they grow to care about—individuals who work collectively to support Ukraine’s war efforts by making drones, creating camouflage nets, and decorating pysanky eggs to sell on Etsy to raise money for supplies. Additionally, Ukrainian citizens work together to care for stray pets displaced from their families.” Starred Review, School Library Journal
Read an excerpt here.
Wanted to get a picture of these before I gave some away. Met with four of my longtime writer friends yesterday over lunch and wanted a special pysanka for each. Gary Barwin, musician and author of many books of poetry, kids books and novels, including the hilarious Yiddish for Pirates got the giant bird on green background. That’s a parrot, inspired by what’s on the cover of Yiddish for Pirates. Judy Ann Sadler writes picture books, including her most recent, The Digger Dance, but she is also the queen of craft books — she’s had them published regularly since the 1990s! I had to give her something creative, so she got a red bird pysanka. Gillian Chan, author of historical fiction and fantasy, just finished an exciting new novel, and green is her favourite colour. She also loves fish motifs so she got the green pysanka with a circle of fish. Barbara Haworth Attard, who writes historical fiction, plus one of my all-time favourite contemporary novels, Theories of Relativity, one of the first YA novels about homelessness, loves to quilt when she isn’t writing, so she got the pysanka with the bees and the yellow pinwheel pattern which is much like a quilting motif. (I gave each a quail pysanka as well.)
This morning I did another presentation with St Sophia Religious Assn of Ukrainian Catholics, USA (Philadelphia). This audience was two 10th grade classes. Thank you so much for the invitation!
It was such an honor to speak with the youth group at St. Sophia Religious Assn USA of Ukrainian Catholics this evening. Thank you, Iryna Ivankovych for the invitation. Students had read Making Bombs for Hitler and we talked about why I write what I write, Ukraine’s traumas over the last century and the intergenerational impact of war. A meaningful and heartfelt conversation.
I had seven quail eggs and two XS eggs cleaned and ready to go last week but had to put them all away because work intruded. Our family stuff was on Friday and Saturday, so on Easter Sunday and Monday, I dragged out the pysanky dyes and kistkas again, listened to music and wrote nine more pysanky. I like doing mini versions of designs I’ve already become familiar with. It’s fun doing two-toned pysanky as well, especially on the littlest eggs.
It was such a pleasure to speak with 5th grade students from Roberts Elementary in Suwanee GA on Good Friday morning. Virtually visiting Roberts has become something of an annual tradition! Here are pics from one of the participating classes. Students asked thoughtful questions and made good connections between my WWII novels and Under Attack: Kidnapped from Ukraine, set during Putin’s current war on Ukraine.
