The War Below

March 5, 2018
In this compelling work of historical fiction, Skrypuch (Making Bombs for Hitler) conveys the brutality faced by European citizens caught between the Soviets and the Nazis during World War II. In a frank, unflinching voice, Luka recounts being forced from his Ukrainian village to work in a Nazi labor camp, which he escapes by hiding in a truck full of corpses. Luka travels cross-country on foot, hoping to return to Kiev to find his pharmacist father, whose lessons in natural medicine (“You have the tools to heal yourself”) help him survive. Eventually, he finds himself in an underground hospital run by the Ukrainian Red Cross. Haunted by flashbacks from 1941, when residents of Kyiv were brutalized first by the communist secret police and then by the Nazis, Luka joins the Ukrainian Insurgent Army: “As long as you’re willing to stand up to Stalin and Hitler, you can work with us.” The youthful innocence of Luka’s narration, despite the numerous atrocities, losses, and betrayals he experiences, underscores the inherent risks of choosing trust and hope. This story, full of numerous acts of compassion and valor, sheds welcome light on a less familiar battleground of World War II. Ages 8–12.

March 1, 2018
After escaping from a Nazi slave labor camp, all 13-year-old Luka Barukovich wants to do is to get back to his home in Kyiv, Ukraine, in this sequel to Skrypuch's Making Bombs for Hitler (2017)."You have the tools to heal yourself," Luka's pharmacist father used to say, and this wisdom and his resourcefulness help him navigate his way through a kindly couple's farm, a long journey through mountainous German terrain, and a stint in the (literally) underground Ukrainian Insurgent Army, not to mention two displaced persons camps and a misguided return to the Soviet zone after the war. So determined is he to survive that at one point Luka even kills a Nazi soldier. After the war, Luka searches doggedly for his beloved work-camp friend, Lida, as well as his parents. Skrypuch continues to shed light on the double jeopardy that many Ukrainians experienced: first mandated to work in dangerous German munitions factories under Nazi control, only then to be forced postwar to repatriate under Stalin's rule, where anyone who "allowed themselves" (as it's put with heavy irony in the author's note) to be captured by the Nazis was considered a traitor. The subject matter is powerful and grows occasionally quite intense.A page-turning window into a complex piece of World War II history. (Historical fiction. 8-12)

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March 1, 2018
Grades 4-7 Readers first meet Luka, a preadolescent Ukrainian boy, as he is escaping from a German forced-labor camp during WWII. But freedom is tenuous as he struggles to survive as a fugitive in a landscape that is, at turns, under Soviet and German control. Fighting is everywhere, but Luka is determined to return to his hometown of Kyiv (Kiev), hoping ultimately to be reunited with his family. In imminent danger, however, he is rescued by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Joining them, he becomes a medic but, stubbornly, never gives up hope of returning home. He also dreams of being reunited with his friend from the labor camp, a girl named Lida. Will any of these dreams come true? Will he survive the war? Skrypuch offers a compelling, visceral novel of survival that provides an unusual view of the war and the almost legendary Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The book would have benefited from a map?it's hard to follow Luka's trek?but the suspenseful story carries the reader along to its satisfying conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)