Why am I passionate about this?
I am a Canadian-Ukrainian children’s author and former librarian. My great-aunt was a sniper with the Ukrainian underground, fighting both Hitler and Stalin. She was executed after the war by the Soviets and buried in a mass grave. Her mother was sent to a gulag in Siberia and never heard from again. I will never know all that happened to my ancestors, but I can give voice to others whose culture, life, and history were erased in the same way. Every novel I’ve written has delved into a piece of the past that has been shoved under the carpet for political reasons.
Marsha's book list on young people trapped between two enemies
Why did Marsha love this book?
I love this book because it also deals with an aspect and perspective on WWII that isn’t commonly explored, and Karen Bass is such a good writer. This novel is about Kurt, a Canadian boy who wonders what his German grandfather did during WWII while drafted into the Wehrmacht. When Kurt goes to Germany to do some research, he finds out more than he would have liked.
1 author picked Run Like Jager as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.
Kurt's opa--or grandfather--has never been willing to talk about his time as a German soldier and Kurt has a deep feeling of anxiety about what he might have done during the war. He thinks of films he's seen, like Schindler's List, and hopes his grandfather couldn't have been involved in atrocities. Spending a year in Germany seems like a good chance to find out more, or at least to improve his German.
One day he visits the graveyard in the town he's living in (just outside Berlin) and an old man speaks to him, calling him by his grandfather's name,…
- Coming soon!