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In Making Bombs for Hitler, a Ukrainian woman warns 8-year-old Lida in the cattle car transporting her to slavery in Germany, “Be useful or they will kill you.”

Lida’s story dramatizes the little-known story of slave raids made by Nazi forces in the Soviet Union during the war. Young people were rounded up and used for forced labour in appalling conditions. Many were worked or starved to death; some were used in medical experiments.

From the Bukovina region of Ukraine, Lida is all alone in the world. Her mother was murdered by Nazis as she tried to help Jews, her father was killed by the Soviets. Lida is ripped away from her younger sister, whose story is told in the earlier novel, Stolen Child.

Lida learns to lie to protect herself, to say she is much older than she looks. But, alongside shrewdness, she has other sources of strength. She remembers her mother’s teaching that “You can make beauty anywhere.” And so she takes pains to stitch her work badge, the one that marks her in the eyes of her masters as a subhuman from Ukraine. Her talent with a needle saves her on more than one occasion, but her survival instinct doesn’t blunt her conscience. In a brave attempt to shield a Jewish child, she gives up her one precious keepsake, an iron crucifix.

Making Bombs for Hitler is a sensitively written page turner that teaches lessons in courage, faith, ingenuity and hard work. Lida’s odyssey brings her to the edge of death and, after a protracted struggle, immigration to Canada. It is an important story, but one requiring much adult guidance, even for an older age group than the 9-to-12 bracket for which it is recommended.

What a fascinating and odd novel. I’ve never read anything quite like it.

Vivid characters — Aomame, the gifted assassin and Tengo the underachieving genius mathematician / writer. Mix in blank-faced and dyslexic Fuka Eri, the cult, the Little People. A meandering and mind-exploding story. Murakami’s language is deceptively simple. The reader falls into the story, not realizing what they’re in for. I ended up loading this novel onto my phone so I could read it in bits and snatches. I was continually caught off balance by the various twists and turns.

I loved all the little threads that intertwined throughout and how in the end they made perfect sense.

Hard really to explain this novel. I am sure there are people who would throw it against the wall only 50 pages in, but I was entranced.

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I consumed this novel in a matter of hours. The premise is similar to Before I Go To Sleep. In this novel, an orthopedic surgeon who now has Alzheimer’s is accused of committing a murder. The story is revealed entirely from the point of view of Dr. Jennifer White as her mind deteriorates. What a fine juggling act Alice LaPlante does to pull this off so seamlessly.

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Loved this book. Catherine the Great was a bundle of contradictions. A brilliant mind and a great manipulator. Robert Massie’s well-researched and beautifully written biography does Catherine justice. I had read biographies of her before but none so thorough as this.

Massie uses an anecdotal style that is highly readable.

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A delightful picture book! Love the whimsical illos by Wendy Whittingham and love the galloping verse that rolls of the tongue. The grossness is pretty nifty too. Another sure winner for Valerie Sherrard!

 

The Brant News
by Colleen Toms
November 24, 2011
Flipping through the pages of Brantford author Marsha Skrypuch’s newest book, The Last Airlift, Tuyet Yurczyszyn points to a black and white photograph.

The picture shows numerous children, including babies strapped into cardboard boxes, sitting in the belly of a Hercules aircraft.

An arrow with the name Tuyet points toward a young girl.

“That’s me right there,” Yurczyszyn said.

Skrypuch’s latest novel, her first non-fiction work, chronicles the story of Yurczyszyn’s journey to Canada as one of 57 Vietnamese orphans rescued from the city of Saigon during the Vietnam War.

Eight years old and walking with a limp as a result of polio, she was one of the oldest children in her Saigon orphanage. Her age and limp marked her as “unadoptable.”

That all changed when a Brantford couple turned up at Surrey Place in Toronto. For the first time she could remember, Yurczyszyn was part of a family. She was about to head to her new home.

The Last Airlift is an uplifting story geared toward readers in Grades 4 to 8. Skrypuch said the book not only offers insight into the fate of children in war, but also how people can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

“Whether they are children or adults, we see people walking around but we don’t know what people have gone through or what they have gone through to become Canadians,” she said. “Every single one of us has something to make them feel that they are different. With this story, the reader can have more empathy for other people.”

Upon her arrival to Canada, Yurczyszyn discovered her first blade of grass, stars in the night sky and a bed of her own. More importantly, she discovered what it was like to be part of a family with a real mom and dad.

“There were mostly nuns at the orphanage, not males so much,” she said. “I remember thinking it’s a really great feeling, like I belong to somebody now. The only thing was, my fear was always that I was going to be sent back, that I wasn’t good enough.”

Enjoying a traditional Vietnamese meal at Quan 99, Skrypuch was preparing to interview Yurczyszyn about her life growing up in Brantford as the newest daughter of John and Dorothy Morris. It will become a sequel to The Last Airlift.

“It was after interviewing Dieu and Hung Nguyen (the owners of Quan 99) in the early 1990s that first sparked my interest in Vietnamese-Canadian stories,” Skrypuch said. “It was an odd thing for Tuyet to have her childhood recorded in other people’s history. I am thankful to have been able to give that back to her.”

Yurczyszyn is now happily married to husband Darren and has two children, Luke and Bria.