Everyone knows about Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, but many do not know of the thousands of deaths Josef Stalin was responsible for during the second World War.
During World War II, the Soviet Union, under Josef Stalin's rule, occupied the tiny countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and deported anyone they felt to be anti-Soviet. During this time, these three countries lost more than 1/3 of their population. Being of Lithuanian heritage myself, even I did not know about this time in history. That is why I feel this book is so important for teens as well as adults to read this book.
In Between Shades of Gray, Lina and her family are taken from their home in the middle of the night, loaded onto cattle cars with hundreds of other "anti-soviet" Lithuanians, and deported to hard labor camps in Siberia. They are barely fed and are not given adequate shelter or sometimes even any shelter in temperatures below zero. Lina, a talented artist, uses art to document the horrors around her. Over a few years, Lina and her family travel up past the Arctic Circle into Siberia into sub-freezing temperatures, enduring hard manual labor in the harsh conditions.
Reading about what these people went through was not easy, but Ruta Sepety's flawless storytelling and use of language makes Lina and her family come alive for the reader. Sepety creates a heartbreaking story full of hardship but also of hope and of love.
This is such an important book for people to read, and I will do everything I can to make more people read it.
Grade: A+
