Winterkill

By: Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Narrated by: Michael Gallagher

Ukrainian Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch tells a gripping story of how the Soviet Union starved the Ukrainian people in the 1930s -- and of their determination to overcome.

Nyl is just trying to stay alive. Ever since the Soviet dictator, Stalin, started to take control of farms like the one Nyl's family lives on, there is less and less food to go around. On top of bad harvests and a harsh winter, conditions worsen until it's clear the lack of food is not just chance... but a murderous plan leading all the way to Stalin.

Alice has recently arrived from Canada with her father, who is here to work for the Soviets... until they realize that the people suffering the most are all ethnically Ukrainian, like Nyl. Something is very wrong, and Alice is determined to help.

Desperate, Nyl and Alice come up with an audacious plan that could save both of them -- and their community. But can they survive long enough to succeed?

Known as the Holodomor, or death by starvation, Ukraine's Famine-Genocide in the 1930s was deliberately caused by the Soviets to erase the Ukrainian people and culture. Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch brings this lesser-known, but deeply resonant, historical world to life in a story about unity, perseverance, and the irrepressible hunger to survive.

©2022 Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch (P)2022 Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.

Touching

This was a very touching story. I didn’t know about all the people who died of hunger.

My father’s history in one book

This is an extremely moving story which brought me to tears. My father emigrated in 1930 from his family farm in Ukraine leaving his parents and 3 siblings at the time. This was the first detailed narrative I read of this period and I will spend my time telling others to please read this book. Thank you for writing it.

Gripping tale

Gripping tale of the horrors of living through the Stalin imposed Ukrainian famine. Told through the voice of a child forced into adulthood by the horrors around him.

Highly recommend

My husbands grandfather and other family escaped in what I think would may been early Holodomor - they were in western Ukraine (he worked grain elevators and farmed) …they made it to Canada - his great grandfather went back for more family and was captured & sent to a mining camp in Siberia where he later died

This was felt like a personal story - but it is for sure one all need to hear - a very similar representation of stories his family has passed down