Tag: Ukrainian

Dance Camp!

Just had the most wonderful visit with Green Grove Camp — a summer Ukrainian dance camp in Saskatchewan for Ukrainian Orthodox children and youth! Their teacher, Anya Shyian, let me know that the board had provided each participant with a copy of one of my books, so I mailed a personalized book plate for each of them. The questions were fantastic! So detailed and specific from so many different books and and times in my own life. I extended the session so that all questions could be answered, and extended again when a cluster of kids had more questions. I asked them to show me some of their dance moves — beautiful! And we ended with them dancing out of the room!! 

Teaching Genocide in ELA classrooms, with Russia’s current war on Ukraine as the focus.

After writing the Kidnapped from Ukraine trilogy over a frenzied 17 months, I tried to take a break from writing in 2025. I did manage to not write fiction, but ended up writing book contributions and other non-fiction things, including chapter four, “Crafting Historical Fiction: Rehumanizing Global Crises Through Character Development” in Sarah J. Donovan’s upcoming book, Teaching Genocide and Holocaust Education in ELA Classrooms: Language to Remember, Witness, and Repair.

I selected Russia’s current war on Ukraine as my genocide focus, and the rehumanizing of the victim exercise uses a scene from Standoff as a launching point.

Making Bombs makes the list!

Very thrilled to see Making Bombs for Hitler on the The Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s 50 Must-Read Canadian Middle Grade books in celebration of the Centre’s 50th anniversary! Such an honour to be included in this list that goes all the way back to Anne of Green Gables (1908!)

This is the original 2012 Canadian cover.

And all the others:

Ukrainian edition
Romanian edition
Audible edition, 3rd US cover
Korean edition
USbombs
Original US edition
French edition
Second US cover
bombsjpg2

London: Still Alive launch and Vyshyvanka Day

It was a wonderful event last night in London Ontario. Many thanks to the volunteers and organizers from London UCC and the London Ukrainian Centre. It was great to see the students and educators from Woodstock’s St. Sophia Ukrainian school as well!

 

Still Alive book event at Koota Ooma!

This is my favourite photo of the night: a young reader excited to meet the person who wrote a book that he loves! I had meaningful conversations with so many people. It was a deeply emotional night.
Such an honour to be introduced by Lidiia Karpenko, a wonderful writer.
Mirka and I have a tradition of wearing matching jackets!

Svitlana and Maple Hope Fdn

Paulette had been telling me for months that I needed to meet her friend Svitlana Kominko, the founder of the Maple Hope Foundation, an organization that emerged in 2014 when the founders met during solidarity marches in Vancouver for the Euromaidan Revolution. We met for dinner on Friday night and talked for hours. I have such deep respect for Svitlana and all that she and her team have been able to accomplish to assist Ukrainian mothers who have lost their children during war. Do check out her website and donate if you can. I wish we had got a photo of us together! Here’s a pic of Svitlana, scooped from her facebook page. What an emotional way to end an amazing week. I flew home the next morning.

Friday: Signing at Book Warehouse on Main

After my last school session and on my way to returning the rental car, I stopped in at Book Warehouse on Main to autograph their stock copies of my books. The traffic was heavy and where I parked wasn’t exactly great, but the books are signed! LOVE independent bookstores. They are an author’s best friend, and readers’ best friend!