The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine by Katherine Marsh

 

Have you ever heard of the Holodomor? I hadn't until I read this book. And a good children's historical fiction novel is one of my favorite ways to learn something new. This story has a dual timeline--Matthew is a 13-year-old living with his mother and grandmother during the 2020 pandemic. An old photo starts him on a journey of discovering her secret past. The 1930s story is one of cousins from Ukraine who are living through a horrific famine that is being deliberately covered up by the Soviet Union. One cousin is a city girl who is well fed, but when a starving girl claiming to be her cousin shows up on her doorstep she discovers family secrets as well as the high cost of speaking truth under the communist regime. It has a lot of similarities to Code Name Kingfisher by Liz Kessler, and also connects to Blackbird Girls by Anne Blackman and I Must Betray You by Ruth Sepetys. A great book for 4th-8th graders but also can be enjoyed by adults. 

Escape from Chernobyl by Andy Marino

I first read The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman, which got me interested in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. I wanted to read more, so I picked up this action-packed book about various teenagers escaping, returning, surviving, and not surviving the famous nuclear reactor meltdown of 1986. Chernobyl was a large nuclear reactor located in what is now Ukraine, but at the time was part of the Soviet Union. The Soviet government did not want word to get out that their nuclear reactor had exploded, so rather than evacuate and try to save the lives of innocent people, they waited while pretending that there was not dangerous radiation in the air. This story follows a teen who works in the nuclear reactor as well as some others who live in the nearby city. I didn't feel a strong connection to the characters, but this was worth reading to learn about the Chernobyl disaster and how it affected young people.