My Long List of Impossible Things
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
A brilliant historical YA that asks: how do you choose between survival and doing the right thing?
The arrival of the Soviet Army in Germany at the end of World War II sends sixteen-year-old Katja and her family into turmoil. The fighting has stopped, but German society is in collapse, resulting in tremendous hardship. With their father gone and few resources available to them, Katja and her sister are forced to flee their home, reassured by their mother that if they can just reach a distant friend in a town far away, things will get better. But their harrowing journey brings danger and violence, and Katja needs to summon all her strength to build a new life, just as she’s questioning everything she thought she knew about her country.
Katja’s bravery and defiance help her deal with the emotional and societal upheaval. But how can she stay true to herself and protect the people she loves when each decision has such far-reaching consequences?
Acclaimed writerMichelle Barker’s new novel explores the chaos and destruction of the Second World War from a perspective rarely examined in YA fiction—the implications of the Soviet occupation on a German population grappling with the horrors of Nazism and its aftermath.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Barker (The House of One Thousand Eyes) crafts an uneven survival narrative set in 1945 during the post-WWII Soviet occupation of Germany. When Soviet troops cast them from their farmstead, their widowed Mutti insists 16-year-old Katja and 18-year-old Hilde take 10 minutes to gather some belongings before they flee. The intelligent but impulsive narrator Katja must abandon her beloved piano and possibly her dreams of becoming a concert pianist. Barker creates a pervasive sense of danger as the family takes to the road with other German refugees in their own homeland; the loss endemic of war becomes reified for the sisters when soldiers execute Mutti after Katja calls them "savages." After the duo arrives at the home of distant relatives, they must make themselves essential in order to stay. The narrative explores choices and consequences, but Katja's consistent recklessness undermines her character arc. Though Barker's writing frequently lacks the gravitas necessary to sensitively contextualize the hardships of Soviet postwar occupation against the horrors of the Holocaust, the novel succeeds in illuminating an oft-overlooked chapter of history, hopefully spurring readers toward more nuanced exploration. Ages 14 up.
