In Children of Rus', Faith Hillis recovers an all but forgotten chapter in the history of the tsarist empire and its southwestern borderlands. The right bank, or west side, of the Dnieper River—which today is located at the heart of the independent state of Ukraine—was one of the Russian empire’s last territorial acquisitions, annexed only in the late eighteenth century. Yet over the course of the long nineteenth century, this newly acquired region nearly a thousand miles from Moscow and St. Petersburg generated a powerful Russian nationalist movement. Claiming to restore the ancient customs of the East Slavs, the southwest’s Russian nationalists sought to empower the ordinary Orthodox residents of the borderlands and to diminish the influence of their non-Orthodox minorities.Right-bank Ukraine would seem unlikely terrain to nourish a Russian nationalist imagination. It was among the empire’s most diverse corners, with few of its residents speaking Russian as their native language or identifying with the culture of the Great Russian interior. Nevertheless, as Hillis shows, by the late nineteenth century, Russian nationalists had established a strong foothold in the southwest’s culture and educated society; in the first decade of the twentieth, they secured a leading role in local mass politics. By 1910, with help from sympathetic officials in St. Petersburg, right-bank activists expanded their sights beyond the borderlands, hoping to spread their nationalizing agenda across the empire.Exploring why and how the empire’s southwestern borderlands produced its most organized and politically successful Russian nationalist movement, Hillis puts forth a bold new interpretation of state-society relations under tsarism as she reconstructs the role that a peripheral region played in attempting to define the essential characteristics of the Russian people and their state.

Ukraine, 1940. She cups her daughter’s face with her trembling hands, imprinting it on her mind. ‘I love you. Be brave.’ she whispers through her tears, her heart breaking into a thousand pieces. Sending her child away is the only way to keep her safe. But will she ever see her again? When war rips their country apart, Julia is sent away by her tearful parents in the dead of night, clutching her mother’s necklace and longing for one last embrace. But soon she is captured by Nazi soldiers and forced into a German labour camp, where behind a tall fence topped with cruel barbed wire, she has never felt more alone. Just as she begins to give up on all hope, Julia meets Henry, a young man from her village who shares her heart full of dreams. And when she feels a fluttering in her belly that grows and grows, she longs to escape the camp and begin a new life with their child. But then Julia is forced to make a terrible choice. A choice no mother should have to make. New York, 2011. With her heart shattered and her life changed forever by the shadows of war, as the years go by Julia thinks she will never be whole again. For decades she has been carrying a terrible secret with her, her every moment tainted by tragedy and loss since those dark days of the war. But when she receives a phone call in the middle of the night, far away from the home and family she lost in the war, will Julia finally be reunited with the missing piece of her heart? Or is it too late for her wounds to heal? Based on the incredible true story of the author’s grandparents, The Child of Ukraine is a breathtakingly powerful tale of love, loss and family secrets, perfect for fans of The Four Winds, The Last Green Valley, and The Nightingale. This novel was previously published under the name Motherland. What readers are saying about The Child of Ukraine: ‘OH MY GOSH I AM STILL BROKEN FROM THIS BOOK… heart-wrenchingly compelling… left me in tears with nearly every page… fantastic.’ NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘WOW! I absolutely loved this… beyond heartbreaking… incredible… I read it in less than 48 hours and was totally hooked from start to finish… a must read.’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Breathtakingly powerful… I couldn’t stop reading… got a hold of me and refused to let go. This is a corker!’ NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A searing novel of hope, heartbreak and one woman’s refusal to let her spirit be crushed. I couldn’t put it down, even when I could barely see the page through my tears.’ Erin Kelly, million-copy best-selling author ‘Heartbreakingly raw and emotive. I couldn’t put the book down, I read it in a couple of days, which is unheard of for me! Tears were pouring down my face.’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I stayed up until two in the morning to finish this… amazing… I couldn't put it down… heartbreaking… brilliant.’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Heartbreaking… I'm not often moved to tears by books, but oh my goodness… the last few pages had me sobbing! A gripping and powerful read.’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Incredible… never before has a book moved me to tears, it really got me. I was fully immersed from the first to the final page. I love this book and will be recommending it to all my friends.’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Breathtaking… I don’t think I have the words to describe how utterly beautiful yet heartbreaking it is.’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘This will break your heart and put it back together again in the most bittersweet way. The most amazing story and characters.’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘This book is for women and mothers everywhere. Heartbreaking. Just finished it and can’t even form a sentence to tell my husband how it ended. There is still a lump in my throat… I feel like I knew the characters personally and was on the journey with them.’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Heart-wrenching… I could barely put it down.’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘You have to read this!… Beautiful, gripping, heart-wrenching… will make you cry and hope.’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I can’t put it down! I haven’t read a book in this way, just obsessively captivated and unable to put it down, in a very long time!’ Amazon reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Stolen from her family by the Nazis, Nadia is a young girl who tries to make sense of her confusing memories and haunting dreams. Bit by bit she starts to uncover the truth—that the German family she grew up with, the woman who calls herself Nadia's mother, are not who they say they are. Beyond her privileged German childhood, Nadia unearths memories of a woman singing her a lullaby, while the taste of gingersnap cookies brings her back to a strangely familiar, yet unknown, past. Piece by piece, Nadia comes to realize who her real family was. But where are they now? What became of them? And what is her real name? This story of a Lebensborn girl—a child kidnapped for her "Aryan looks" by the Nazis in their frenzy to build a master race—reveals one child's fierce determination to uncover her past against incredible odds.

'The wheels of the cart thrummed along the ground, a black silhouette moving across the slate skies, the figure of Julia's sister cut out in black, holding the reigns. They were now hours away from what they had left behind...' Ukraine, 1940. Julia flees her childhood home, never to see her parents again. She is captured and forced into a labour camp in Germany, where she slowly starts to give up on all hope of survival. Her redemption comes in the form of Henry, a fellow Ukrainian working for the SS. Julia and Henry promise themselves to each other, and the days pass with little hope, but just before liberation, they welcome a daughter into the world and decide to board a boat filled with thousands of immigrants heading to Australia. Salvation. They begin again, trying to make sense of their life in the barren sugarcane fields. But Julia feels isolated and frustrated, and tensions slowly mount between her and Henry, until one day, Julia is forced to reveal a tragic secret; a secret that she'd never revealed for fear of losing him, and their daughter. It breaks Henry's heart and shatters his trust, and so he gives her an ultimatum before they immigrate to New York. It's a choice no mother should ever have to make. Her decision changes the course of her life forever, until 65 years later, the forgiveness she seeks comes from someone she never thought would find her again. Based on extraordinary true events, Motherland is a powerful story about love, loss, and perseverance against the odds, perfect for fans of We Were The Lucky Ones, The Light Between Oceans, and The Nightingale.

A companion to Making Bombs for Hitler and The War Below, this novel follows a Ukrainian girl who was kidnapped as a child to be raised by a Nazi family. Nadia is haunted by World War II. Her memories of the war are messy, coming back to her in pieces and flashes she can't control. Though her adoptive mother says they are safe now, Nadia's flashbacks keep coming.Sometimes she remembers running, hunger, and isolation. But other times she remembers living with a German family, and attending big rallies where she was praised for her light hair and blue eyes. The puzzle pieces don't quite fit together, and Nadia is scared by what might be true. Could she have been raised by Nazis? Were they her real family? What part did she play in the war?What Nadia finally discovers about her own history will shock her. But only when she understands the past can she truly face her future.Inspired by startling true events, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch delivers a gripping and poignant story of one girl's determination to uncover her truth.

Learn how to welcome new neighbors into your community, particularly when they might be far from home, in this uplifting and diverse picture book that champions human connection and inclusivity. After all, the world is everyone's home and we're one big family! When we see someone new in our neighborhood, how can we help them feel safe and loved and important? How can we tell them, you're not alone? There are so many ways! Our World is a Familyis a picture book exploring the complicated topic of human migration in a gentle, loving, and affirming way. It lightly touches on the reason people might leave their homes, like climate change or lack of safety, and inspires children to welcome their new neighbors into their communities with love.

What do you want from me, I asked. Everything you're not prepared to offer, grief said. And so, we sat quietly, listening to the noise of our rabbit hearts, and gave our stories to each other. What if you learned to love the very thing you're scared of? conversation with grief is part of a series of three collections of poetry and prose taking the reader into the realization that learning about the 'big moments' in life means having raw and vulnerable conversations with yourself, with others, with memories, music, words, loss, and healing. In "conversation with grief", Tetyana sees a scale of life where grief and loss exist everywhere: within joy and pain, within beauty and tragedy. And ultimately, the hardest and most rewarding thing we can do is to sit with grief, talk to it, live with it like a friend we can learn from and heal with. Tetyana's writing has been called "haunting", "bold and lyrical", "completely heartbreaking", and a beautiful study of connection, humanity, and how we can all learn from each other's stories."

Ukrainian Galicia was home to Poles, Jews and Ukrainians for hundreds of years. It was witness to both World Wars, starvation, mass killings and independence movements. Family members of the authors include survivors of German concentration camps and the GULAG prisons. They fought in Austrian, Polish, Russian and German armies, as well as in the Ukrainian pro-independence army. They were arrested by the Gestapo and the NKVD, tortured and even declared dead. They survived against the most unlikely odds. Their stories, shadows and secrets permeate this book and provide a rich background to some of the most dramatic events humanity has witnessed.

From The New York Times bestselling author of Prayers for Sale comes the moving and powerful story of a small town after a devastating avalanche, and the life changing effects it has on the people who live there Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado's Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o'clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive. Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There's Lucy and Dolly Patch—two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke's only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There's Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belies her genteel façade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there's Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child's parentage from all the world. Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it's through each character's defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent's purpose for living. In the end, it's a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family.

A Jewish factory worker is falsely accused of ritually murdering a Christian boy in Russia in 1911, and his trial becomes an international cause célèbre. On March 20, 1911, thirteen-year-old Andrei Yushchinsky was found stabbed to death in a cave on the outskirts of Kiev. Four months later, Russian police arrested Mendel Beilis, a thirty-seven-year-old father of five who worked as a clerk in a brick factory nearby, and charged him not only with Andrei’s murder but also with the Jewish ritual murder of a Christian child. Despite the fact that there was no evidence linking him to the crime, that he had a solid alibi, and that his main accuser was a professional criminal who was herself under suspicion for the murder, Beilis was imprisoned for more than two years before being brought to trial. As a handful of Russian officials and journalists diligently searched for the real killer, the rabid anti-Semites known as the Black Hundreds whipped into a frenzy men and women throughout the Russian Empire who firmly believed that this was only the latest example of centuries of Jewish ritual murder of Christian children—the age-old blood libel. With the full backing of Tsar Nicholas II’s teetering government, the prosecution called an array of “expert witnesses”—pathologists, a theologian, a psychological profiler—whose laughably incompetent testimony horrified liberal Russians and brought to Beilis’s side an array of international supporters who included Thomas Mann, H. G. Wells, Anatole France, Arthur Conan Doyle, the archbishop of Canterbury, and Jane Addams. The jury’s split verdict allowed both sides to claim victory: they agreed with the prosecution’s description of the wounds on the boy’s body—a description that was worded to imply a ritual murder—but they determined that Beilis was not the murderer. After the fall of the Romanovs in 1917, a renewed effort to find Andrei’s killer was not successful; in recent years his grave has become a pilgrimage site for those convinced that the boy was murdered by a Jew so that his blood could be used in making Passover matzo. Visitors today will find it covered with flowers. (With 24 pages of black-and-white illustrations.)