Between Shades of Gray

 

(picture from Goodreads.com)

1.       Bibliography

Sepetys, Ruta. 2011. BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY. New York, NY: Penguin Group.
              ISBN 978-0-14-242059-1

2.       Plot Summary

Ruta Sepetys’ novel, Between Shades of Gray, starts in 1941 Lithuania. Lina is a normal fifteen-year-old girl who is preparing for art school and looking forward to her summer. In the middle of the night Soviet officers invade her home, making Lina, her mother, and brother Jonas, pack quickly. They are loaded into cattle cars and taken to a Siberian work camp.

In the work camp, Lina, her family, and many others, have to fight for their lives in deplorable conditions. They experience hunger, abuse, and sickness. They witness what people are truly like when they have to work together, or choose to only look out for themselves.

As an artist, Lina finds her escape in her drawings. She secretly documents events and locations in her work that she secretly passes along hoping they will make their way to her father in another camp.

When their mother dies, Lina tries as hard as she can to keep her brother alive, until they are liberated.

3.       Critical Analysis

 

Ruta Sepetys takes on Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror in this sad fictional retelling of the events that took place during WWII. Everyone knows of Hitler’s Holocaust, but less commonly known was that Stalin did similar deportations. Included at the book is a map that is intended to convey the distance Lina and her family traveled as well as the same timeline with where they would have been at each stop along the way.

Sepetys’ story follows a young Lina as she is taken from her home and put into a work camp for eight months before being transported to the Siberian Arctic. As Hitler did, Stalin had people put into cattle cars and taken to their destination. Many did not survive the journey itself, but many more perished after arriving and struggling to survive through the hunger, filth, and abuse.

 

Sepetys’ goes into detail about the different diseases many people experienced. Among them were scurvy, dysentery, and typhus. As she details these sicknesses, the reader gets to visualize what those sicknesses looked like and how people died from them or survived them.

 

Apart from the historical aspects to the book, the structure of the book is notable. Interweaved in with the events Lina and her family are currently experiencing are flashbacks from Lina’s past. The reader gets to see foreshadowing of the Soviet deportations and Stalin’s control. The reader also sees Lina’s life and happiness, and how everything was stolen from her.

 

Sepetys likes to take on historical events that are not commonly told and in the author’s note at the end, Sepetys describes the amount of research she did to write this book. She met with family members and survivors of the deportations. She also talked to psychologists, historians, and government officials. While the events are fictional, she worked hard to create a book that was as authentic as possible.

4.       Awards/ Reviews

 

·       New York Times notable book

·       International bestseller

·       Carnegie Medal nominee

·       William C. Morris Award finalist

·       Golden Kite Award winner

"Superlative. A hefty emotional punch." --The New York Times Book Review

"Heart-wrenching . . . an eye-opening reimagination of a very real tragedy written with grace and heart." --The Los Angeles Times

"At once a suspenseful, drama-packed survival story, a romance, and an intricately researched work of historial fiction." --The Wall Street Journal

* "Beautifully written and deeply felt . . . An important book that deserves the widest possible readership." --Booklist, starred review

“A superlative first novel. A hefty emotional punch.”--The New York Times Book Review

5.       Connections

 

Fans of historical fiction might enjoy other books by Ruta Sepetys:

·       Salt to the Sea- WWII (Winter 1945)

·       I Must Betray You- Romania, 1989

·       Out of the Easy- French Quarter, New Orleans (1950)

·       The Fountains of Silence- Madrid, 1957

Teachers can use excepts from these books to accompany primary source documents during their teaching of these times periods. Including these books or excerpts helps students see what the times were like for someone their age and could put themselves in these teens shoes.

Between Shades of Gray, in particular, gives a different view of WWII camps. Many people are unaware of the Lithuanian people’s removal by Soviet officers to Siberia.