Between Shades of Gray
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the award-winning author of Salt to the Sea comes a “superb” (The Wall Street Journal), “eye-opening” (Los Angeles Times) novel of survival and hope in the darkest of places—the inspiration for the major motion picture Ashes in the Snow
"Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both." —The Washington Post
WINNER OF THE GOLDEN KITE AWARD • A CARNEGIE MEDAL NOMINEE • A WILLIAM C. MORRIS AWARD FINALIST • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE CENTURY
A knock comes at the door in the dead of night, and Lina’s life changes in an instant. With her young brother and mother, she is hauled away by the Soviet secret police from her home in Lithuania and thrown into a cattle car en route to Siberia. Separated from her father, Lina secretly passes along clues in the form of drawings, hoping they will reach his prison camp. But will her letters, or her courage, be enough to reunite her family? Will they be enough to keep her alive?
A moving and haunting novel about loss, fear, and ultimately, survival, Between Shades of Gray is a tour de force of historical and emotional storytelling.
"Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both." —The Washington Post
WINNER OF THE GOLDEN KITE AWARD • A CARNEGIE MEDAL NOMINEE • A WILLIAM C. MORRIS AWARD FINALIST • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE CENTURY
A knock comes at the door in the dead of night, and Lina’s life changes in an instant. With her young brother and mother, she is hauled away by the Soviet secret police from her home in Lithuania and thrown into a cattle car en route to Siberia. Separated from her father, Lina secretly passes along clues in the form of drawings, hoping they will reach his prison camp. But will her letters, or her courage, be enough to reunite her family? Will they be enough to keep her alive?
A moving and haunting novel about loss, fear, and ultimately, survival, Between Shades of Gray is a tour de force of historical and emotional storytelling.
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Community Reviews
Throughout this book I kept hearing my Mother's voice. Thank you for making such a terrible situation come to life with a hopeful tone.
Heart wrenching. One of my favorite books to date. First read it in middle school for assigned reading and have read it 3 times since then.
I read this book in one day because it was too sad to drag out over multiple days. I originally read thirty pages of this book months ago, but then it was too sad. I couldn't pick it up again. But I reached the limit on renewals on it at the library, so I had to just power through. I powered through, and damn. It was good but holy hell was it hard to read. The thing, too, is I learned a lot of shocking things. This book was about how Stalin deported tons of people from throughout the USSR and sent them to slave labor camps, where so, so many of them died from overwork and neglect and cruel treatment. I knew Stalin was a bad man -- that doesn't even begin to describe it. I knew he had thousands of people in the USSR killed. I just didn't really comprehend how far-reaching that went, between the expanse of territory from which he took people and also how long it lasted. At the end of the book, there was a letter that explained that survivors of these slave labor camps were eventually allowed to go home, but weren't allowed to talk about their experiences at all until their country became their own again. For Lithuania, which is where the main character is from, this didn't happen until 1995. That's insane. The amount of crimes we as humans can hide or pretend isn't happening is insane and unacceptable. We need to remember to speak up. We need to speak up for Syrian refugees, for gay people being straight-up murdered in Chechnya, for innocent people being rounded up and deported in the U.S. We need to remember that we need to be compassionate, with each other and with ourselves. We don't really get anywhere by making sure only our people are the ones being taken care of. I think those people who only care about themselves and not their neighbor forget about that old poem: I didn't say anything when they came for the Jews, because I wasn't a Jew, etc. And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up. Your turn will always come, if we don't collectively stand up for each other and for what is right.
I recommend this book to everyone, but especially to people who think that their only job it to take care of their own and no one else. Humanity is the responsibility of all of us, and it is by taking responsibility that we can retain our humanity.
I recommend this book to everyone, but especially to people who think that their only job it to take care of their own and no one else. Humanity is the responsibility of all of us, and it is by taking responsibility that we can retain our humanity.
The fact that is based off of a true story makes it even more sadder. I love the book. The Arthur did a great job.
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