Publication Date: March 2011

Blurb:

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously—and at great risk—documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. 

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What To Expect:

Between Shades of Gray is a historical WWII YA story set in Lithuania and Russia in 1941. Readers can expect moments of shocking human cruelty balanced by family loyalty and love, plus a little romance.

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Content Warnings:

Language: Moderate – Occasional throughout, including some stronger profanity.

Sexual Content: Closed Door – A young woman is touched inappropriately by a guard. A man makes sexual comments suggestive of rape. Some obscene comments and gestures. Sexual abuse and prostitution are implied but never seen on the page. The romantic plot is limited to a few brief kisses.

Violence: Moderate to Heavy – Deportation and work/concentration camps. Murder & death. Abuse and sexual assault.

Substance Use: Mild – Mentions of drinking and drunkenness

Prejudices: Heavy – This story chronicles the tense ethnic and cultural prejudices of WWII, with much of the violence being carried out by Soviet forces against Lithuanians.

Religious Themes: Mention of heaven and hell. A woman recites Psalm 23.

Other Topics: Grief and loss of loved ones. Starvation and illness are prevalent.

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