The Russo-Ukrainian War and Stolen Children in Diasporic Children’s Literature

• In Event: Children’s Book Publishing in the Russia-Ukraine War

Abstract

The theme of the Russo-Ukrainian war has already appeared in Ukrainian literature for young people, as well as diasporic books issued by major presses in North America. Interestingly, acclaimed authors of historical fiction, such as Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger and Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, have published middle-grade novels about the present-day Ukrainian children experiencing Russia’s war. In this presentation, I want to analyze two books published by Scholastic, Lucyk-Berger’s Swimming with Spies and Skrypuch’s Under Attack, the first volume in her Kidnapped from Ukraine trilogy, and examine how diasporic authors of children’s historical literature depict the Russo-Ukrainian war and the roles young people play in it.

Author

• Mateusz Swietlicki, U of Wrocław (Poland)