I was really pleased to be asked to take part in the blog tour for this book. This story is heartbreakingly honest and truly brings to light the terror and uncertainty of a family leaving their home country. Leaving friends, family and entire lives behind to be hosted by a family in a foreign land is something many of us in the UK have never properly encountered.
Malcolm Duffy has always been a writer that does not shy away from tough topics and themes, and his latest doesn’t either. He has brought to the reader, the events surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
We read about Kateryno and her family who are caught in a missile attack and must live in dangerous circumstances for weeks. When they finally leave Ukraine and arrive in the UK, they find themselves out of immediate danger but entire new types of trouble find them.
The struggles of being a teen are plentiful but add to that the terror felt from the attack, worries for her father serving in Ukraine and living with another family and you have a teen barely keeping her head above water.
It is books like this that empathy grows from. By allowing us to step into the shoes of Kateryno, we can learn about her life experiences and feel a different perspective on events that we may only have seen on the news.
I admit to being fully engrossed in this story and not wanting to set it down and I know it would be a valuable book for secondary schools to invest in.
My Shelves Are Full 