Historical Fiction Novel: Between Shades of Gray Plus Group Discussion

Hello my readers!

I hope you are all having a lovely April so far.  So in our YA lit class, we had to read a historical fiction selection.  Historical fiction is a really important genre.  Typically, a historical fiction novel will try to inform the reader about some time period or event, with the intention of making a connection between the reader and the characters so that the reader has a reason to be involved or to care.  A lot of the time, a piece of historical fiction will act as a launch point to spark an interest in the reader.  Once that spark is lit, the reader can then go find more information on whatever topic the novel was on.

For my historical fiction novel, I chose Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys.  Between Shades of Gray is about a 15 year old girl named Lina who lives in Lithuania during WWII.  The Soviets come in the middle of the night and take her, her parents, and her younger brother away to a work camp in Siberia.  They face separation, hard labor, brutal winters, poor living and travel conditions, and starvation.  There is a lot of death and a lot of pain.  Lina is a talented artist and uses her drawing skills to make it through.

(Between Shades of Gray has a really great website as well. There are videos of the author talking about her book, group discussion guides, and reviews from critics.  You can find it here.)

In class, our group talked about how we felt about the book.  The general consensus was that it was a difficult read because there wasn't a lot of hope from the get go.  As one of my classmates said, it was pretty much emotionally "shitty the whole way through", which made it difficult to stick with.  But we also decided it was a really important read, as many of us had no idea about the Siberian work camps in WWII.

One activity we were asked to do was to come up with a list of everything important we took away from Between Shades of Gray.  It was a really fun activity, so I'm going to post the list here for your enjoyment.

"Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned from Between Shades of Gray"

1. Blankets should never be taken for granted.
2. A parent's love is greater than you know.
3. Be kind to everyone, even your "enemies."
4. Not all people are bad, they just act bad under certain circumstances.
5. Time heals all.
6. Humans have the power to overcome anything.
7. Always find a hole to poop through.

I hope you will go read Between Shades of Gray.  It really is an important piece of historical fiction.

~Meaghan