Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I finished reading Gloria Whelan’s Burying the Sun aloud to my second girlie last night, and I’m STILL blown away by how little I knew about the siege of Leningrad before this month. How could I not know the basic facts? I’ve been fascinated by WWII history for decades–how could there be such a huge gap in my knowledge? I found myself almost pitying Josef Stalin, and that’s saying something. (Not to mention that the German attitude toward the siege makes Hitler looks even worse, and I wasn’t aware THAT was even possible.)

Anyway.

For those of you who share my (until now) ignorance, the siege of Leningrad was BAD. (Google it–your heart will break for the Russians.) Gloria Whelan, however, does a solid job of writing about it for middle grade readers, and those who have read The Impossible Journey will be pleased to see Georgi get his own book. I might have balked at reading this one to my second child had I known more of the history–she doesn’t like books about war OR sad books–but she was undeniably hooked, and she laughed out loud more than once during the bits of comic relief. (The scene with Georgi and the manure particularly!) This is a piece of history that our children ought to know, especially in regard to our sometimes difficult relationship with Russia. Props to Gloria Whelan for daring to set a piece of juvenile fiction amid such tragedy.