First book I read for 2026 was a fairy tale retold by the master of horror, Stephen King: Hansel and Gretel (with illustrations by Maurice Sendek).
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| Fairy tale retelling by Stephen King |
The fairy tale caught my focus while I’ve been lost in research about the post-war period as East Prussia transitioned to Kaliningrad. Families broken, children hungry, forests dangerous, adults not to be trusted. Those were not fairy tale horrors, those were real life dangers. There is an unworldly quality to the years between 1945 and 1948.
I'll repeat mention of an earlier non-fiction book called The Wolf Children of the Eastern Front by Sonya Winterberg and Kerstin Lieff. It explores how the orphaned children managed later in life. Did they, in fact, live happily ever after?
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| middle grade novel by Australian author Katrina Nannested |
I highly recommend Katrina Nannested’s middle grade novel, We are Wolves, for anyone interested in the plight of orphans after the war in this no man’s land corner of eastern Europe. And of course, read Stephen King’s new retelling of Hansel and Gretel. (spoiler alert: there’s a happy ending … which I wish for all of us in 2026).
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| Kaliningrad: Portal to a dark past? |
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