Katya is born as the third child to a fairly well-to-do Mennonite family who settled in the Ukraine, near Odessa a few years before the first World War. She is eight in 1910, when the story starts and twelve at the beginning of the war. She and her family go through horrendous time during the war and the ensuing anarchy of the Bolshevik revolution, which she then relates as an old woman living in Winnipeg to a young man interested in Mennonite history. This is the form the book takes- Kathy’s memories aided by the journal she wrote, complete with old letters, recipes, and newspaper articles.

At the beginning, I felt overwhelmed by the number of characters introduced all at the same time and felt lost in all the connections among them, but then managed to sort them out and got engaged both in them and in the storytelling. I found the story interesting, with an outstanding portrayal of the community, not only that of Mennonites, but also Russian peasants, and rich in evocative imagery of nature and memorable episodes.
Overall, it was a worthwhile read and a good background to Toew’s novel, A Complicated Kindness.
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Great book, interesting history of German people in Ukraine ( )