HREC – Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Interview with TQ Townsend of Children’s Literature Podcast

Thank you, Tiffney, for your well-considered questions. I enjoyed our discussion!

122 – Winterkill by Marsha Skrypuch

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.

Boo!

From East Selkirk MS — honestly, I try not to terrify students!

Winterkill Webinar from CUCS series

Webinar series: Literature of the Holodomor

Cuthbertson MS and Winterkill

The final virtual visit for 2022 was with Cuthbertson Middle School’s 800 grade 6, 7 and 8 students in 29 different classrooms. Check out this pic!

Michele Bost had done an amazing job prepping the students and they were visibly engaged in the discussion. There were oodles of questions and we could have continued for quite some time but the school day was ending. Here are more pics from the other side of the screen:

Winterkill and Cuthbertson HS

I loved speaking to the six classes of grade 9-12 students at Cuthberston HS in NC about Winterkill and the Holodomor. Students asked such perceptive questions!

Ms Green sent me this pic before the visit!

New Sarepta AB, presenting to a single class of older students

One of the things I like most about presenting is that no two audiences are ever alike. This single class of grade 7/8 students was quite a change from the big groups of younger students. Different questions, but also more time for discussion. We talked about the kind of research an author does to write a book like Winterkill and how to find resources when the historical event has been hidden or suppressed. I am so grateful to HREC and HREC ED because their databases of resources are a great starting place for Holodomor research. This page on Rhea Clyman is one of my favorite places to send students. And this page is another superb resource that I used myself extensively. I particularly like the report to Congress because the massive database of survivor testimonies is searchable by word.

Winterkill and Benefield ES

Some 5th grade students were in the library and others watched from their classes. Thank you, HREC ED and HREC for your resources and funding. I love speaking about the real history behind Winterkill. It gives me an opportunity to talk about the connections between the current war waged by Russia onto Ukraine.

Speaking with students at two schools today with significant Ukrainian refugee populations

This morning I did a virtual visit about Winterkill and the Holodomr with RF Morrison school in Winnipeg MB and late this afternoon, I spoke with St Theresa Catholic MS in Sherwood Park, AB. What both of these schools have in common is a large contingent of Canadian students whose first language is English but who have opted for Ukrainian language classes, plus recent refugees from Russia’s genocidal war on Ukraine who have come to these communities because of their welcoming populations and are attending schools where they can speak in Ukrainian but learn English.

The other thing both of these schools have in common? Utterly dedicated, compassionate teachers who do everything they can to make their new students feel welcome. I think these teachers have figured out how to bend time because when I hear about all that they’ve accomplished, I am in awe.

At RF Morrison, the students from Ukraine were particularly interested in what my connection to Ukraine was and why I wrote so much about Ukrainian history. From their perspective, having grandparents arrive in Canada from Ukraine more than a century ago made me seem pretty darned Canadian. They were curious about the Canadian connection with the Holodomor in Winterkill, about the idealists who joined the Canadian communist party and traveled to Soviet Ukraine to assist with Stalin’s collectivization plans.

With St. Theresa, there was a technical glitch, so the students who were in the auditorium could see and hear me perfectly, but I couldn’t see them. Their questions were typed in and I had no way of knowing how they responded to anything I said. Thankfully, Ms Pohoreski texted me feedback, which helped tremendously. I found it interesting that the students from Ukraine at St. Theresa learned more about the Holodomor in Canada than they ever did while in Ukraine.

It was an enriching experience for me to speak with all of these students and I’m grateful to HREC ED for making them possible.