Dark Accounts

Between Shades of Gray by Uta Sepetys was excellent: one of the few stories (if not the only one) written to engage young adults in a history almost no one discusses anymore (if ever). Though the Holocaust needs to be discussed, so too does Stalin's massacre and displacement of millions. I was impressed that the author managed to emphasize the humanity present in such horrible circumstances, though she says she focused on the love. I also liked that the narrator experienced much through the lens of art, thinking of how she would draw everything around her. Sadly the book had no pictures! They should have hired the illustrator for A Monster Calls. Between Shades of Gray won The Golden Kite Award and was nominated for a Carnegie Medal as well as being a NY Times notable book.

To continue in the same dark vein of history, I also read Helga's Diary by Helga Weiss about her experiences as a young girl in Hitler's concentration camps. She documented her experiences on whatever scraps of paper she could find and they passed them off to her uncle at Terezin who hid them in the bricks. Once she was "free" she wrote down the rest of her experiences before moving on with her life to the best of her ability. This is not fiction though not every piece may be exactly right. What stood out for me, especially after having read Between Shades of Gray, was the honesty of emotion. Emotions swing and we lie to ourselves constantly. Lina in Between was the typical teen, a bit angsty and scared, an amalgamation of many teens, but always growing into a stronger woman. Helga was mostly scared and confused but steadily transitioned from a girl who had hopes and dreams to a girl who just didn't want to be hurt and expected to die. And she was selfish. She felt she was the most unlucky girl in the world and then said she managed to get both clogs and stocking and some people would have to go barefoot all winter.

What struck me most about these stories, as with all accounts of abuses, is how senseless it all is and how difficult to hear/read and how necessary. Though I don't want to, I need to read something about the atrocities in Africa. Now, though, I have started The Green Boat about our catastrophic environmental problems and how to do something. Hope!