It is always such a pleasure visiting students and educators at Josyf Cardinal Slipyj Catholic School in Etobicoke! Ms Daciuk had a big stack of books all sorted and ready to sign — Koota Ooma Ukrainian Bookstore kindly got books over to the school before my visit.
A big crowd of students packed into the tiny gym and I presented Under Attack, comparing Russia’s current actions of kidnapping and brainwashing Ukrainian children to what Nazi Germany did in WWII to Polish and Ukrainian children in their Lebensborn program.
The audio edition of The War Below will be released on Sept 24th, 2024 by Tantor Audio, with Kyle Tate as narrator. Very thrilled about this! Thank you Maral Maclaghan, Scholastic Canada rights manager extraordinaire!
Thank you, Ms Coffman, for the opportunity to meet with your avid readers from Limestone MS, IL! I loved their well-thought-out questions about a bunch of my books, and also about creativity and research!
Tiffanie from Roberts Elementary always lifts me up. After our author visit last week she emailed this feedback:
WOW! WOW! WOW!
You have a magical way of engaging our students sparking curiosity that lasts way beyond your visit! You answered their questions with such grace, care, and honesty. We loved it!
I had a wonderful visit with Roberts Elementary in Gwinnett County, Georgia last week. I’ve been virtually visiting students at this school for a number of years and have such respect for their media specialist, Tiffanie, who has an infectiously positive and generous perspective on life. I also love how her students come up with the BEST questions. There were about 9 classes participating in the session and each one had 3 questions. My favorite question from yesterday was, if you could tell your younger self something, what would it be? My answer: that the people who told me I was a slow learner were wrong. I was a different learner, and that would ultimately be a gift.
Have to say, meeting with students is one of the most wonderful aspects of being a writer.
Tiffanie made my day when she emailed this after the session: WOW! WOW! WOW!
You have a magical way of engaging our students sparking curiosity that lasts way beyond your visit! You answered their questions with such grace, care, and honesty. We loved it!
I am so very thrilled to have this novel finally available for Ukrainian readers. Yulia Lyubka’s translation is brilliant and I LOVE the cover art by Anya Styopina. Making Bombs and Stolen Girl tell the tale of two Ukrainian sisters torn apart by the Nazis in WWII. One is considered racially valuable and is kidnapped, brainwashed into thinking she’s German, and placed in a Nazi home. The other sister is considered not racially valuable, and is starved and worked nearly to death. Although these books are historical, they’re unfortunately also current because Putin channels Hitler and Ukrainians are currently going through this all again. The publisher is Books XI. In Canada they’re available through Koota Ooma.
What’s their order? You can read either Making Bombs or Stolen Girl first, but read The War Below last.
Audible edition
Here’s what the books looked like when they were originally published by Scholastic Canada:
The second trilogy should be read in this order: Don’t Tell the Nazis, Trapped in Hitler’s Web, and Traitors Among Us. While there is enough context in each of the novels so that they can be read as standalones, to get a true picture of Krystia and Maria’s experiences in WWII, reading them in the order that I wrote them is best.
Don’t Tell the Nazis was originally published in Canada in 2018 as Don’t Tell the Enemy. After that, Scholastic Books and Scholastic Canada published my books simultaneously, and with the same title.
Winterkill takes place before World War II, at a time in the 1930s when the dictator from Moscow implemented a plan to starve Ukrainians to death so he could replace them with people of Russian and Belarusian heritage. Millions of Ukrainians were killed. This genocide is called the Holodomor (holod = hunger; mor=death). This novel chillingly reflects what is happening in Ukraine now, with Putin trying to repeat history.
It was an honor to be the guest speaker at a gathering of 7th and 8th grade students from Ottawa Christian schools last Thursday. These senior students from 4 schools had selected my novel Don’t Tell the Nazis as their group read. Before my presentation, the classes did their presentations, giving their responses to the assembly. It was deeply moving for me as I watched from the background. There was poetry, flash action scenes. And one class made their own covers of the book.
Don’t Tell the Nazis is based on the real life experiences of Iryna Korpan’s mother and grandmother, Ukrainians who hid their Jewish friends under the kitchen floor in the hopes of saving them from the Nazi Holocaust-by-bullets. I told the students about the real people and the real circumstances.
When librarian Monica Wetzig brought me in to her library, one of the very first students I met was a girl who had come in to see me, but also one who Ms Wetzig had selected to eat lunch with me. It turned out the student was ecstatic. She had come into the library to give me a special gift because we shared a heritage — she was also Ukrainian — plus she loves my books. Ms Wetzig had no idea she was Ukrainian, just that she was an avid reader. It was especially sweet that she was selected for that reason! She brought me a Ukrainian flag and socks!
And she drew this flag for me, with a special message on the other side.
A whirlwind of presentations and lunch chats. A fantastic day!
