Hitched a Ride Once

Funny how the mind works. I woke up this morning with a two-decade old memory stuck in my head. So I had to go through some old photos until I found tangible evidence that I wasn’t just dreaming. 

Back in 2004, I hitched a ride with a Ukrainian farmer and his shepherd dog across some furrowed farmland outside of Zhytomyr, close to where my mom was born before collectivization, near fields that my grandfather ploughed.

Poor Ukraine. Always struggling to survive. Borderland of trouble. It’s a wonder anything grows

on such a blood-soaked land.

I’m a city person, born and raised where streets are paved, dogs are leashed and streetlights keep the night away. But some of that kulak farm blood still runs through my veins.

Peace to you, dear farmer. Thanks for the ride. Thanks for sharing your rich land with a stranger. I still feel the connection. 

Red stone in a field
once the foundation of
my grandfather's windmill

 

About War

I've recently read two memoirs about young people in Germany during and immediately after the Second World War. German Boy, A Child in War by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel came out back in 2000, while Waltraud, A True Story of Growing up in Nazi Germany, came out in 2023 and is written by the protagonist's daughter, Tammy Borden.

There’s an eight-year age gap between the protagonists. Waltraud is born in 1927 and Wolfgang in 1935. Both stories have a ‘happy ending’ when they find their way to the USA. Wolfgang leaves Bremerhaven in January, 1951 crossing  the Atlantic on the USNS George W. Goethals. Waltraud leaves in September of the same year on the USS General R. M. Blatchford. Both arrive in New York. 

My parents also exited Europe via Bremerhaven. They traveled on the Beaverbrae in July, 1953 bound for Quebec. They’d been born in 1918 and 1919 and thus experienced the war, not as children, but as adults who ended up as Soviet POWs.  With Canada’s Remembrance Day on the horizon, once again I feel the familiar mixed emotions. Remembrance Day does not address the horrors of war. It’s about remembering the courage of soldiers, allied soldiers.

It doesn't remember the others who wore no uniform. Those affected by hunger, disease, and loss … loss of home, of family, of careers, of education and of hope.  These two memoirs remind us that it’s not just soldiers in uniforms who have courage. It's not just soldiers who suffer and die. War fails everyone.

Local History with Big Impact

UPDATE:  Launch at McNally Robinson's, Thursday, Nov. 20/25 

Harriet Zaidman showcases the nuanced views about abortion that continue to complicate what should be a straight-forward issue. Our bodies are our own. As teenaged Leesa struggles with her unfortunate predicament, we learn about Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the man who courageously fought for women’s right to choose and about the anti-abortionists, including church-based evangelicals, along with activists like Joe Borowski.

There’s an interesting subplot, focused on a young woman’s murder back in the eighties, where the wrong man was sent to prison. It underlines our city’s convoluted need to appear just without necessarily doing what's right.

Struggling marriages, a woman’s need for financial independence, and the lack of accountability for young men with big egos and sexual aggression are deftly handled by Zaidman.  No wonder her previous novels (Strike, 1919 about the union movement in Winnipeg and Second Chances, about the polio epidemic here in Winnipeg) received national awards. With What Friends are For, Zaidman’s social commentary continues to be spot-on.

Set in my home city of Winnipeg, back in 1983, What Friends are For, presents, with tantalizing tension, the still-hot-button issue of abortion. Told through the eyes of fifteen-year-old, Leesa, I was reminded of the strong emotions this topic brought to media, politics, religious communities and even to my own dinner table. I remember getting up and leaving the table when one of my uncles, a known womanizer who’d served in Hitler’s Wehrmacht, began name-calling Dr. Morgentaler.  Yes, the eighties were filled with such characters and such tensions … even here in Winnipeg.  

Zaidman’s protagonist, Leesa, is bombarded from both sides of the issue and as a reader I lived through the stress of her fear and the strength of her conviction. Kudos to the author for re-opening a door to a topic that continues to be contentious. 

Stories Build Bridges

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s latest book, Standoff, is the second of a three-book series called Kidnapped from Ukraine.  Like her first in this series, Under Attack, it’s about the ongoing war in Ukraine. Her two 12-year-old protagonists, Dariia and Rada, are twin girls who become separated from each other in the early days of the bombardment of Mariupol. 

The author lets readers dive deep into the atrocities of this real-time war and into survival mode in the dark, dank bunkers deep under the Azofstal Iron and Steel plant. It’s a middle grade story, yes, but adults will appreciate the research and detail that Skrypuch incorporates into this novel.

I’ll never read another Ukrainian news headline or view another horrific image without feeling the suffering that Dariia, Rada, her parents and close friends experience since February, 2022. Yes, this is fiction. But this is not ‘just’ fiction. 

War might make the news when Trump, Zelenskyy and Putin discuss weapons and negotiate tariffs. But war is also about young girls who want to wear nail polish and bunny slippers, who want to hug their pets and text their family or friends. Kids need security.  Little things matter. 

While Russians continue to be manipulated by their leader, Putin, it’s stories like these that have the power to change people. There’s nothing good about war and no justification for violence.  Skrypuch empowers her characters to take action and not just be victims. Readers will appreciate the hope that is ever-present. 

Up until Kidnapped from Ukraine, Skrypuch’s bestselling novels focused on wars from the past. This series focuses on a modern war. History repeats itself in tragic ways. I hope kids all over the world get to read her books. These don’t just belong on a reading curriculum … they belong in a social studies’ class and at the dinner table.  

Could students in my city continue to bully newcomers from Ukraine if they read novels like this? I don’t think so. Stories build bridges. They matter. 

Hope is like the tenacity of a sunflower
in a cold October wind

It's not 'just' Fiction

Super excited that my research and writing has led to a connection with the real person who inspired a fictional character in my 2022 novel, Crow Stone. My aunt, my mom’s youngest sister, had cared for a little girl during the life-changing 1945 winter trek in former East Prussia as they tried to escape the Soviet army to reach the rescue ships at the Pillau harbour. My aunt was still a teenager and this child she protected was a toddler between two and three years of age. What happened to my aunt and the child after 1945? While my mother spent the next 2 ½ years in the Urals as a Soviet p.o.w., (fictionalized in Crow Stone) her two sisters and this child stayed behind as northern East Prussia transitioned into the Kaliningrad enclave belonging to Russia that we know today. 

Crow Stone characters inspired by people still living

In 1953, after finding each other again, my mom and her sisters—once again homeless— immigrated to Canada. But the little girl, E.., by then about 10 years old, was left behind in Germany. I don’t know the details, but I think she was reunited with some family member in Schleswig Holstein, a province in northern Germany. This little girl, E. is coming to Canada next year and we’re going to meet up. She’ll be able to share with me some of the details of her tragic childhood that have been buried over the decades.  I’m just tingling with excitement. She’s read Crow Stone and I was quite nervous about how she’d react to this fictionalized account of those horrible times … but the fact that she’s eager to meet me and share more is a positive sign, right? I’m just thrilled!

My mom (right) and her youngest sister, 40 years after the war,
safely growing old in Canada

As we age, it’s childhood memories that creep back into the centre stage our consciousness. I may have been born and raised in Canada, but the leftovers of my family’s trauma have haunted my own life. Writing these trauma-focused novels has helped me process the dynamics of my family. Every family has stories worth exploring. We just need to ask the questions and remember to be kind, curious and brave. 

 

Newcomers still Struggle to Belong

This morning the announcer on my kitchen radio shared news that a 14-year-old girl had been assaulted and bullied in a local high school... supposedly because of her Ukrainian accent. This school is ten minutes from my home. All three of my kids attended the institution set in a middle-class neighbourhood. I assume that means the residents have some sort of higher learning.  How can war refugees be bullied? Where does this sort of attitude come from? 

In my novel, Waltraut (Heritage House, 2024), my protagonist also gets bullied and ostracized because of her immigrant background. But that story was set back in the sixties. Has our Canadian education system still not enlightened students about the challenges of immigration? Is our Canadian society still afraid of people who have an accent, or a difficult-to-spell name, or parents who struggle with English? Are we Canadians still afraid of people who are different?  Are our children learning intolerance from the adults in their lives?

As I did my daily walk in the woods close to Oak Park High this morning, I pondered the learning that happens in between the classes, between the official curriculum, in between the necessary bureaucracy.  What are schools teaching our next generation? How can Canada better embrace its newcomers?

Waltraut reflected my own uncomfortable school experiences. Has nothing changed in fifty years?  Shame on us. 

Curious About Emotions

Gritty and authentic, The Outsmarters by Deborah Ellis left me in tears … a curious emotional reaction for a book filled with rage. Ellis immerses readers into a hard-edged world of outcasts and promises no happy ending. 

The title refers to the rejection that the 12-year-old protagonist, called Kate throughout the first half, experiences. She’s been ostracized by her addicted mother, her rule-based school and peer bullies. Gran, her substitute caregiver. has not resolved her own rage and is not a good role model.  Kate avoids her whenever possible. With exquisite craft, Ellis lets the reader experience the determination, hope, disappointment and anger that powers the characters throughout a most engaging novel. 

I've also been reading The Emotional Craft of Fiction by Donald Maass and would have to say that Ellis, whether she knows it or not, has mastered the craft of employing emotion and inspiring readers with hope. He writes, "The spirit you bring is the spirit we'll feel as we read, and of all the feelings you can excite in your readers the most gripping and beautiful is the spirit of hope." (page 201). 

In my quest for improving my own writing through emotion,  I'm now reading,  The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey into the Feline Heart by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.  Curiousity leads me on.