Category: News stories

Witnesses, Deniers and Bourgeois Troublemakers. The Holodomor and Ukrainian-Canadian Collaboration in Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s Winterkill (2022)

Thank you, Dr. Mateusz Świetlicki, for this thorough examination of Winterkill, particularly in terms of historical veracity and how the novel gives needed context to the Russian Federation’s current genocidal war against the Ukrainian nation and culture. This paper is a great resource for educators who are doing a novel study with Winterkill. Here’s the link.

Pic from Oct 13th HREC ED Webinar about Winterkill with Dr. Mateusz Świetlicki and Valentina Kuryliw

Cedar Hill ES, Lawrenceville, Georgia

Some really great questions about the Holodomor and Winterkill, particularly about individual characters in the book and what their lives looked like after the book was over. But my favorite question of the virtual session was, “What’s it like to be over 60 years old?” I told him that inside, I still feel 12 years old. Another student asked if I would ever work with an illustrator to make one of my books into a graphic novel and I said that was a great idea and would love to see it happen with Making Bombs for Hitler. I showed them Five Stalks of Grain by Adrian Lysenko and Ivanka Galadza and suggested they would like it. I also showed them Sylvia McNicholl’s What the Dog Knows when asked about my current fave book. Thank you, HREC ED, for funding this presentation.

Loved speaking with 190 5th grade students at Cedar Hill this morning.

Thaden School virtual visit

It was so nice to visit with 6th to 8th grade students from Bentonville Arkansas. We talked about my WWII novels and the real people behind the stories as well as what it’s like to be dyslexic and to write books. Middle School Student council members fielded the questions and did the introductions. Very well organized and great questions. There were 140 students participating and Sarah the librarian got this snap of one of the classes. Thank you so much for the invitation, Sarah!

GETCA conference

It was a pleasure meeting with educators on Friday in Edmonton at the GETCA conference. This was my first in-person out-of-Ontario presentation since the spring of 2020. My topic was “How to talk to kids about the war in Ukraine”. I used the opportunity to dialogue with educators rather than me being a talking head. I feel that it’s important to honor everyone’s expertise and educators have been dealing with a crush of refugees in their classrooms as well as an influx of questions about the war. The discussion was illuminating, with teachers of varied grade ranges sharing situations that came up in their classes and giving suggestions to each other. My background as a writer of war books for kids means that I’ve spoken to young people on the topic of war for as long as I’ve written books and this gives me a sense of what various maturity levels can and cannot handle. As research, I’ve interviewed war refugees of all ages. This too gives me a different kind of insight.

One topic of discussion was propaganda and how to educate young people that all news sources are not equal. I referred them to my fellow children’s author Joyce Grant and the work she’s been doing to help young people be discerning about their news sources, plus that she’s involved in a kids’ news website called Teaching Kids News.

Joyce’s book, Can You Believe It is a great resource.

We also spoke about how art and writing projects can help refugee kids share their stories and how those same projects can help kids who haven’t fled war gain empathy as they imagine themselves in the same situation. I shared with them the #KidsFleeWar project.

Here are some pics from the Audrey’s Bookstore’s booth at the conference. Pretty nifty! I signed them all (okay, not all, only the books I wrote!)

A four school virtual day

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:

This is a pic from East Selkirk

Boo! East Selkirk as well!

Velshi’s precise backgrounder on the Holodomor

Ali Velshi