
2 new pee wee pysanky

writes about war from a young person's view #bannedbyrussia
It was so nice to visit with St. Vincent ES students and discuss overcoming personal challenges, empathy and compassion, World War II and the war in Ukraine. Students had lots of questions about Making Bombs for Hitler, Stolen Girl and The War Below.
A few weeks ago, Paulette MacQuarrie interviewed myself and Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger for her podcast about our middle-grade novels set during Russia’s war on Ukraine. This is an abridged video version.
In mid February I had a virtual visit with 6th grade students in Quebec. There were so many questions that I couldn’t answer all of them before the bell rang so I told their teacher I’d be happy to answer by email. Here’s our exchange:
Dear Ms. S, So nice to hear from you! I loved visiting with your students. Thank you so much for donating to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation and thank you for all that you do to encourage a love of reading with your students.
As to your students’ awesome questions, here are the answers:
Question one: Out of the trilogy including Stolen Child, Making Bombs for Hitler, and The War Below, which book is your favourite? – from Luca.
Dear Luca, I love each of these novels for different reasons, but I would have to say that The War Below is my favourite, partly because Luka was such a strong and unexpected character who walked into Making Bombs and was so important to Lida that I had no choice but to give him his own book. Also, the opening scene, where he’s hiding among corpses, is my all-time favourite opening book scene.
Question two: Why do you like writing books? – from Marley
Dear Marley, I love shining a light on people who have lived through extraordinary times but who have been ignored. I think the more we know about other people’s struggles, the better we’re able to deal with our own struggles. Whenever I finish writing a book, I’m glad to finally write The End and I really try to take a break, but then another story shows itself to me and I have to write it. I have to find out more about that person and their circumstances — to honour that experience, and to share it. If I didn’t write these stories into books I think that my head would explode from holding them all in!
Question three: Which character in which story can you relate to more? – from Alexia
Dear Alexia, the character that I most relate to is Larissa/Nadia/Gretchen in Stolen Girl/Stolen Child. The reason is because a lot of the scenes in this book relate to my own life. The scenes in the Brantford Public Library are inspired by my own trips to that same library because that’s where I taught myself how to read, and in fact, many of the books that Nadia selects are the ones that I selected. The librarian is also based on real librarians from my childhood — their kindness, empathy, and their conviction that loving books meant loving life. Nadia walks through the streets of my childhood — her in the 1950s, and I did that in the 1960s. The local castle (Wynarden Castle) she passes is one that I was obsessed with as a child. I was bullied as a child in elementary school, and so we share that as well. Also, the inspector at the school is based on a music supervisor who was a nun who would go from school to school. Her name was Sister Noella and I was terrified of her as a child, but after she retired, I visited her and interviewed her for the newspaper. Here’s the article:
Here’s the real castle in Brantford:
I had such a wonderful visit with 5th grade students from Craig Elementary School in Georgia who were reading Making Bombs for Hitler and studying WWII. We compared the connections of what happened then and what is happening now with Russia’s war on Ukraine. We talked about revisions, research, and movies in your head. Check out these pics!
Thank you, Paulette MacQuarrie, for this great interview with myself and Chrystyna about our books for kids that are set during Russia’s war upon Ukraine. I consider Chrystyna’s book to be somewhat of a prequel to mine, since hers is set in 2014, during the invasion of Crimea, while mine is set in Feb 2022 in Mariupol, when Russia continued its war. The book in the middle, Ukrainian Food Flair, was edited by Paulette and is available on Amazon. The recipes are GREAT — especially the sweets!
Book #2 of my Kidnapped from Ukraine trilogy will be published on Oct 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 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.
Standoff follows Rada and her father as they navigate the treacherous journey from shelter to shelter and make their way to the Azovstal plant so that her father can fight in the resistance. Meanwhile, Rada is still trying to get in contact with her sister and mother. As the war rages and each family member must contend with their own battles, their love for their country and their family keeps them going.
Had a great conversation hosted by Paulette MacQuarrie’s Nash Holos Ukrainian Roots Radio with Chrystyna K. Lucyk-Berger about our new books, both set during Russia’s war on Ukraine. Paulette is also an author. She compiled a fantastic Ukrainian cookbook. The interview was live, but will be available as a youtube video and podcast later on.
Thank you, Deborah Kalb, for the great questions! Interview here.
Here’s the link to the interview on Scholastic Canada’s blog.
What inspired you to write your book?
Under Attack was inspired by Russia’s 86-day siege of Mariupol, Ukraine in 2022, and their massive kidnapping campaign of Ukrainian kids.
The book starts on the first day of Russia’s war on Ukraine and it follows the fate of Dariia and her mother as they are separated from the rest of their family. They barely survive, day by day, hour by hour, as missiles rain down. The two are ultimately captured and separated and Dariia is sent to a brainwashing camp in Russia and placed with a Russian family.
This current event that is still unfolding resonates deeply with me, because I had already written a book about it: Stolen Girl, set during the Nazi Lebensborn program in WWII. Putin obviously gains inspiration from Hitler.
What did you enjoy most about writing?
I love shedding light on quiet heroes. As I was doing the research for this book, I was in awe of the brave and creative audacity of individual Ukrainians fighting and sabotaging in each small way that they could against the behemoth that is Russia.
What were some challenges that you faced while writing?
This was an emotionally devasting book to write. I am of Ukrainian heritage.
When writing about a war that’s still going on, one must honour those who are living through it but not betray their privacy. For this reason, the characters are inspired by real people, but for the events, I didn’t use anything that was shared in confidence. Instead, I used documented testimony, interviews, and accounts.
What do you hope your readers will take away from your book?
I want my readers to step into Dariia’s shoes and feel what it’s like to have war come to your home.
How do you come up with the names for your characters?
This novel is set in Mariupol, Ukraine in 2022. In that time and place, there are given names and surnames that are in common use. The names that I use in this book are all derived from real names of people living there in 2022.
What books have had the biggest impact on your life?
I am dyslexic and taught myself how to read when I was nine years old and in grade four for the second time. I chose Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist as the book I would marathon through until I could read. That book changed my life. Up until that time, I knew how to cheat at reading – guess, memorize, look at pictures – but Oliver Twist required that I actually sound out letters inside of each word and say it out loud to figure out the word. It took me a whole year to read it, but as I became a better reader, the story began to play like a movie in my head. None of the remedial readers that teachers had tormented me with up to that time ever put movies in my head. After reading Oliver Twist, I knew that I wanted to write novels that put movies in people’s heads. And I wanted to write on similar themes like what Charles Dickens did – and if you’ve read my books, you know that I do. But I also decided that I’d leave out the words that people skip over. Dickens was paid by the word, and so he used too many.
What books were your favourite to read growing up?
Because I came to reading in an unusual way, I didn’t select books in a usual way. After reading Oliver Twist, I decided to read all the big fat books in the children’s novel section in alphabetical order by author’s last name. That meant I read all of Louisa May Alcott, Walter Brooks’ Freddie the Pig series, Diary of Anne Frank – because it was mis-shelved with the As, and Black Beauty because it was mis-shelved as a B-authored book. I didn’t get to the end of the alphabet by the time I reached high school and figured out better ways of selecting reading material.
What’s your writing process look like?
I do considerable research before I start writing, and then kamikaze research during. My standard routine is to write for three hours a day and that three hours would consist of reading and revising what I’d written the day before, and then plunging forward on new scenes. Beginning a novel is always the hardest and I can rewrite the first 25% of a novel over and over again before finally getting it to gel and then I’m off galloping. Once I get to THE END for the first time, revision starts. The first draft usually takes about six months and the edits can take a similar length of time.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on a story about a real girl in the medieval times who’s captured as a slave and becomes a queen. It may or may not end up being a trilogy.