Tag: HREC ED

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!

Sweet! Meeting with Saint Vincent students

It was such a pleasure to speak with 6th grade students from Saint Vincent Elementary School in Concord PQ! Such thought-provoking questions about the Holodomor and Winterkill but also about the process of writing and how I feel about the books that I wrote ages ago — would I like to go back and change them? I particularly appreciated the question about why an author like me would get hate mail and death threats for writing about the Holodomor. It provided the opportunity to describe intimidation tactics used by oppressive regimes to control information and to deny history. It’s not just politicians and protesters who are treated this way. Writers and journalists are key targets too.

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:

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.