Tag: Ukrainian

St. Sophia Saturday School

Attended a fantastic launch and presentation yesterday in Woodstock Ontario for Oleksa Drachewych’s new book, Replaying the Second World War, which documents the parallels between Soviet myths, national narrative and atrocities in WWII and what the Russians are doing now in Ukraine. The audience was so engaged that questions could have gone on for the rest of the day.

People had driven in from Hamilton and London to hear Oleksa’s talk, and also to participate in a display of Ukrainian culture. Students from St. Sophia Ukrainian Saturday school performed a dance. A number of the students had read my books and had questions, so after everything was over and people were packing up, we grabbed some chairs and the kids asked questions. I think every question began with, “I have a question, no, actually, I have two …” I was very impressed by these young people!

Roberts ES students always have such good questions!

Today was the 6th time media specialist extraordinaire Tiffanie Lifsey invited me to speak with her fifth grade students in Suwanee Georgia!

There were a lot of budding writers in the audience and many questions focused on that. For example, what does my editing process look like before I send a manuscript to the publisher? How many times in all does a manuscript for a novel go through editing? I think they were shocked by the answer.

There were also questions about the real people behind various characters, but this was the first time I was asked about how I researched for the character of Officer Schmidt, who made appearances in both Making Bombs and The War Below.

This is one of the classes at Roberts ES. I think there were 6 in all.
I love this shot with me and Tiffanie!

Triple Book Launch at Mabel’s Fables!


So excited to be launching book #3 of my Kidnapped from Ukraine
trilogy at a triple book launch with fabulous Canadian children’s
writers, Anna Rosner and her newest, Last Year with Maddie, and Lorna Schultz Nicholson and her newest, The Man in Motion! Hope to see you
there!

Under Attack receives Social Studies Books Award

Thrilled to learn that KIDNAPPED FROM UKRAINE #1: UNDER ATTACK has been named a Winner of the 2026 NCSS-CBC Social Studies Books Award!

Here’s the full list.

The Notable Social Studies Trade Book Awards are an annual project of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and the Children’s Book Council (CBC) running since 1972. This award list features K-12 annotated titles published in the previous calendar year that are exceptional books for use in social studies classrooms, selected by social studies educators.