The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh (2023)
What do teenagers love to learn? Things that are relevant to their world. This book has so many great connections to current day news/problems. Check out the educator’s resource guide on Marsh’s website too!
The Lost Year is a middle grade historical book with alternating perspectives and timelines. Author Katherine Marsh takes us back and forth from 2020 COVID pandemic New Jersey to 1930 famine stricken Ukraine.
Matthew lives in New Jersey with his mom during the COVD pandemic lockdown. His dad recently moved to Paris as a reporter and then the world suddenly shut down. Not only does Matthew struggle with missing his dad, who presumably is less strict about his Nintendo Switch screen time :), but he also follows the strictest form of social distancing to keep his 100-year old Ukranian-American great grandma (GG) safe. As Matthew’s mom balances work Zoom calls and caretaking, she tasks Matthew with organizing his GG’s bins of old letters and diaries. Soon, his conversations with GG lead to never-told stories of her experience in the Soviet-made famine in Ukraine.
We learn about Mila, whose father worked for the Soviets in Kyiv and shared his love for Stalin with Mila. They considered themselves “true patriots,” who looked down on the “kulaks” for their laziness and lack of commitment to Stalin. Yet, one day, Mila’s happy, patriotic world is shattered when a starving girl comes to her door and announces she is Mila’s cousin. This sets Mila on a journey of introspection and survival: “Now I realized how close I had been to the truth. The enemy wasn’t outside us, but within. We were the enemy.”
Heart: The Ukrainian famine was a man-made famine. The Soviets referred to the rural Ukrainians, 80% of the Ukrainian population at the time, as kulaks. They were deemed lazy and deserving of their hunger. When people are “othered,” dehumanization becomes easier.
Head: If I were still teaching 7th graders about human rights in our rights & responsibilities unit, I would tie in these concepts from the book to current day news (and there are (sadly) plenty of current day options to select):
Dehumanization & propaganda (In Ukraine, the Soviets dehumanized and targeted the “kulaks.”)
Sources - Primary and secondary sources (Mila’s cousin in America, Helen, read in the New York Times that there was no famine in Ukraine, but all of the letters Ukrainian American received from relatives indicated otherwise.)
Human Rights: “Human rights are not words on a page. They are not speeches, or commercials or PR campaigns. They are the choices we make everyday as human beings. They are the responsibility we all share to respect each other, to help each other and to protect those in need. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Where afterall do human rights begin, in small places close to home…” I would dive into the different characters: Mila, Mila’s father, Mila’s housekeeper, Helen and identify the choices they make and how those choices uphold human rights.