Tag: Russia

Kidnapped from Ukraine: audiobook

Love having the opportunity to speak the backmatter and acknowledgements for the audio editions of my books. Today, I did that for Kidnapped from Ukraine: Under Attack, Scholastic. Thank you, Will Crann at Catherine North Studios in Hamilton! I have deep respect for professional narrators who do this all the time.

Kidnapped from Ukraine: Under Attack

To be published by Scholastic on Jan 7, 2025.

This gripping, accessible novel by celebrated Ukrainian Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch follows two sisters as they struggle to survive the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

12-year-old twin sisters Rada and Dariia Popkova couldn’t be more different. Dariia is outgoing and chatty while Rada is a quieter and artsy. But what they have in common is their love for each other and their home. The family lives in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which is attacked by the Russians on Feb 24th, 2022.

The attack separates the family — Dariia is with her mom and Rada with her dad. Dariia and her mother are then separated by Russian officials and Dariia is sent to live with a Russian family. As the war rages around them, the sisters and their family must overcome unimaginable hardships. But they will learn how powerful hope is in the face of disaster.

*”Gut-punching: This is essential reading.” — Kirkus, starred review

“important and tough to read novel, which fictionalizes, in harsh detail, true events from a child’s point of view.” — Publishers Weekly

Putin’s Exiles

This is a quick book surveying Russians who abandoned their country once Putin began his “special military operation” against Ukraine. Granted, many of those who fled were thinking more of their personal comfort, but it was uplifting to read about those who where more principled. Even more uplifting was reading about some of the exiled Russians who are working behind the scenes to help Ukraine win the war, like the physicist who helped develop defensive equipment and was honored by Ukraine for doing so, and about those who have enlisted in the Ukrainian army and are risking their lives for Ukraine’s freedom. There are others working behind the scenes in Russia, assisting with sabotage. Those Russians willing to defy Putin are a small percentage of the whole. But even so, this book gives me hope that one day there might be a Russia that isn’t premised on killing one’s neighbors and isn’t premised on treating ones own citizens as medieval slaves.

Russia’s War on Everybody 5/5

This book is written by Keir Giles, who is a Senior Consulting Fellow for the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. He speaks with authority on the topic of Russia’s world-view and goals and the risks we all are facing because we don’t take the malevolence of the Russian Federation seriously enough. Giles shows how Russia uses the west’s openness, innate decency and democracy as tools to destroy those very things. Russia’s antipathy to the west is all encompassing, as is Putin’s ruthlessness. No enemy is too small to destroy, nor too big. This book will shock and inform you. I urge you to read it. If you think the current war is just about Ukraine, you need to read this book. If you think the road to peace is negotiation, you need to read this book.