Between Shades of Gray Author: Visit Amazon's Ruta Sepetys Page | Language: English | ISBN:
014242059X | Format: PDF
Between Shades of Gray Description
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Sepetys' first novel offers a harrowing and horrifying account of the forcible relocation of countless Lithuanians in the wake of the Russian invasion of their country in 1939. In the case of 16-year-old Lina, her mother, and her younger brother, this means deportation to a forced-labor camp in Siberia, where conditions are all too painfully similar to those of Nazi concentration camps. Lina's great hope is that somehow her father, who has already been arrested by the Soviet secret police, might find and rescue them. A gifted artist, she begins secretly creating pictures that can--she hopes--be surreptitiously sent to him in his own prison camp. Whether or not this will be possible, it is her art that will be her salvation, helping her to retain her identity, her dignity, and her increasingly tenuous hold on hope for the future. Many others are not so fortunate. Sepetys, the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee, estimates that the Baltic States lost more than one-third of their populations during the Russian genocide. Though many continue to deny this happened, Sepetys' beautifully written and deeply felt novel proves the reality is otherwise. Hers is an important book that deserves the widest possible readership. Grades 7-12. --Michael Cart
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
"A harrowing page-turner." - Publishers Weekly, starred review
"A gripping story." - School Library Journal, starred review
"Sepetys' flowing prose gently carries readers." - Kirkus, starred review
"Beautifully written and deeply felt." - Booklist, starred review
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
- Age Range: 12 and up
- Grade Level: 7 and up
- Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Speak (April 3, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 9780142420591
- ISBN-13: 978-0142420591
- ASIN: 014242059X
- Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Here's the thing. . . even before reading this book, I knew that Stalin was responsible for the murder of some twenty-million people. 20,000,000! How does one even comprehend such a number? I clearly remember thinking in high school, "How? What deaths? Does this have something to do with the Holocaust?" Somehow, after the Victorian period and Russian Revolution, but before WWII, the USSR just appeared. It just happened. I can't make sense of how I did this (and I loved history class), but I think I somehow just attributed all those deaths to the Holocaust because they seemed to happen at the same time, but I couldn't figure out exactly where they fit in and why.
And, of course, there were no stories, no actual, personal memoirs to tell me differently. No versions of Schindler's List or Elie Wiesel's Night existed about the plight of these European nations, ones which we in the United Stated don't know nearly as much about as we do France, Spain, Germany and Italy. Twenty million was just a statistic to me - a wholly regrettable, but forgettable, number, because there was no narrative. Until now.
Between Shades of Gray is beautiful book about human endurance and the will to survive. Lina, her younger brother, Jonas, and her beautiful, courageous, hopeful, and selfless mother, Elena, are one of the most wonderful families that I've read about in so, so long, and it's due to this that they were able to cope as they did. Lina's coming-of-age into young adulthood is wretchedly overshadowed by the need to survive. Her thriving talent becomes her lifeline, her tool that keeps her going because people must know what happened. The descriptions are well-detailed and harrowing.
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