Between Shades of Gray

"Wow" is all I have to say (well, almost.)

I started it last night and COULD NOT put it down -ended up finishing it.  

Lena is a Lithuanian teenager in 1941 when the Soviet Secret Police come at night 

to take her family away.  

"They took me in my nightgown.  Looking back the signs were there- family photos burned in the fireplace, Mother sewing her best silver and jewelry into the lining of her coat late at night,  and Papa not returning from work."  

Forced onto filthy cattle cars with thousands of other people Lena and her mother and brother try to stay alive and together as they are taken to work camps during Stalin's "cleansing" of the Baltic region. 

 Interspersed in the story are flashbacks to Lena's life before the upheaval and the contrast between the normalcy of her life before and her current life are so dramatic.   A gifted artist, Lena draws secret pictures to record the atrocities that she witnesses, knowing people won't believe that they could even happen.  She secrets the drawings in her suitcase lining and passes some from person to person, hoping her father will find them and know that she is alive. 

 I honestly found myself ignorant of most of the atrocities that are looked at in this book.  I know we talked briefly of this time in history when I was in school but never discussed the genocide that occurred.   

I truly feel that this book should be required reading in high school.   Ruta Sepetys researched this book by traveling to visit family that had been through the upheavals in Lithuania and recording their stories.  Many of the stories in the book are true accounts. 

This novel looks at cruelty and small acts of kindness in wartime in a way that will touch your heart.

So powerful.

Little Templars

I have a bit of an obsession with anything that has to do with the Knights Templar, or Arthurian legend.  I saw this book at the library and it caught my eye, so thought I'd try it. 

The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail by Michael Spradlin

They year is 1191 A.D.  A young orphan boy named Tristan is being raised by a group of kind monks.  He is taken into squire-hood (is that the word?) by a kind Templar knight on his way to the Holy Land to fight in the Crusades.  Tristan fights with the Templars for several years.  On the siege of a city he is entrusted with Christianity's most holy relic, the holy grail.  Tristan must get the grail to England.  On the way he meets up with some characters (loosely taken from other historic/legendary characters) and adventure awaits.  This is the first in a series so I have to read the next one now!  

Very fun read.  It's appropriate for most-this first one I'd read to my kids.  The only bad part is the battle scenes which aren't too awful (not anything like what they would have been.) 

Blue Tattoos

I am so enamored with the "Bloody Jack/ Jacky Faber" series by L.A. Meyer right now.  They are as addictive as Twilight, but a bit more intellectual.  Historical fiction written for probably 9th grade up (because of violence and sexuality about like the level of Twilight) they are quick reads and very entertaining.
The second book in the series, The Curse of the Blue Tattoo, tells us of Jacky's plight after she is put off the Dolphin in Boston.  Enrolled in an elite girl's finishing school she is quite out of place for a London beggar lass from Cheapside and has to learn how to cope in a world of women (which can fight much dirtier than any men can.)

She learns quite a bit and once again the author leaves us wanting more, more, and more!  I  put this one down and was mad at myself for not checking out at least two at a time from the library.  I'm so glad there are eight in the series so I won't have to be left yearning for more for at least a month! :)