Marsha – Page 20 – Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Such a pleasure to meet with 4 schools today! First up was Delran Middle School in NJ. Students had just finished reading Making Bombs for Hitler and we had such good discussions about the real people and history behind that novel, that trilogy and also about Winterkill.

I also met with students from Souris School in Manitoba, East Selkirk MS, and Hollyburn School in West Vancouver.

Here are some Hollyburn pics:

Velshi’s precise backgrounder on the Holodomor

#Winterkill tells the story of the very real #Holodomor – or Ukrainian Genocide – Stalin’s calculated attempt to exterminate the Ukrainians and their culture. Sound like today’s war in Ukraine? The parallels are shocking. #VelshiBannedBookClub pic.twitter.com/VPESU73Gsr

— Velshi on MSNBC (@VelshiMSNBC) February 18, 2023

Saving for posterity

Because in a blink of an eye, the numbers will change. But this shows the power of Ali Velshi. Winterkill shot up on Amazon in both the US and Canada. In the US, Winterkill is currently at #40 overall and is #1 in several categories. Check it out:

Amazing to be #1,2,3 and 4 in a category, all for the same book!

In Canada it’s a little bit different — a bunch of my books ended up in the top ten!

Wonder how long this tag will stay on amazon.com

Oh, and I must have missed it totally, but Winterkill was #3 overall on Amazon.com on Feb 19th, according to Top Ten Books:

#VelshiBannedBookClub

I admire Ali Velshi’s fierce defense of freedom to read. His Banned Book Club sheds light on books that illuminate, educate and irritate. Everyone should be able to read what they want and being able to read a variety of books from all different viewpoints is the cornerstone of a democracy. It was such an honor to have Winterkill featured today on Ali Velshi’s Banned Book Club segment, particularly because Ali is in Kyiv right now, highlighting the injustices of russia’s genocidal war. This is so important with the anniversary of the war fast approaching.

I was particularly impressed with the superb research that went into the Holodomor backgrounder as an intro to Winterkill. Deep respect for Ali Velshi.

Here’s the interview:

And a really good backgrounder on the Holodomor here:

#Winterkill tells the story of the very real #Holodomor – or Ukrainian Genocide – Stalin’s calculated attempt to exterminate the Ukrainians and their culture. Sound like today’s war in Ukraine? The parallels are shocking. #VelshiBannedBookClub pic.twitter.com/VPESU73Gsr
— Velshi on MSNBC (@VelshiMSNBC) February 18, 2023

Thank you, Joanne Levy, for taking this pic!

Pajama Day at Traphagen School

It was pajama day at Traphagen school on my Scholastic Book Fairs virtual visit. I decided to join in and wore my housecoat. Many of the students were partway through Winterkill so they asked me not to give away anything past chapter 11! Great questions, nice students! And now I’m considering wearing a hat to bed!

An excellent and terrible book

Thank you Susan Lowell and the Historical Novel Society for this review of Winterkill. You’d think an author wouldn’t like their book to be called terrible, but seeing as I’m immersing the reader in the midst of a largely unknown genocide that’s being replicated by Russia right now, the description is apt. Here’s how the review begins:

This is an excellent and terrible book.

Well-written, it includes convincing and sympathetic characters, and it bears witness to an awful historical event: Stalin’s partially successful attempt between 1930 and 1933 to starve Ukraine to death. Its author, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, is, in her own words, “fierce in her pursuit of truth.” Read more here.