The Impossible Journey (Russian Saga, 2) - Softcover

Whelan, Gloria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0064410838 ISBN 13: 9780064410830

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2004

Synopsis

From National Book Award winner Gloria Whelan comes the remarkable continuation of her Russian series.

With her signature spare language and luminescent detail, award–winning author Gloria Whelan delivers the gripping companion novel to her Russian saga, Angel on the Square.

One night in 1934, Marya and Georgi's parent's disappear. The children, alone and desperate, fear the worst. But one crumpled letter gives the children hope and sends them on a difficult mission : to escape the city and find passage to the great Siberian wilderness. This is the story of their journey, one both perilous and transforming.

Ages 10+

About this title

About the Author:

Gloria Whelan is the bestselling author of many novels for young readers, including Homeless Bird, winner of the National Book Award; Fruitlands: Louisa May Alcott Made Perfect; Angel on the Square; Burying the Sun; Once on This Island, winner of the Great Lakes Book Award; and Return to the Island. She lives in the woods of northern Michigan.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 5-8-A story of a remarkable 13-year-old girl in an extraordinary situation. In Leningrad, in 1934, Marya sets out to find her parents, former aristocrats and therefore considered enemies of the state, who have been sent to Siberia as political prisoners. The spirited and resourceful girl learns that her mother is in Dudinka, a thousand miles from the closest railway station. Marya obtains a few rubles selling her paintings (like Kobe in Homeless Bird [HarperCollins, 2000], Marya's creativity helps sustain her) and buys tickets for herself and her younger brother. At the railway station, the children begin their trek, finding their way by following a river. Some strangers help them; others conspire to report them to the authorities for placement in an orphanage. A tribe of reindeer-herding Samoyeds helps the children to their final stop, where they are reunited with their mother. Papa, who had been sent to a coal-mining camp in Siberia, eventually joins them, but is so ill that he dies at the first signs of spring. Life under Stalin as seen through the eyes of Marya is accessible, well researched, and culturally insightful. Lyrical prose conveys both a strong sense of place and the tremendous love that compels the protagonist to find her parents. Once again, Whelan successfully explores territory less traveled in books for young people.
Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0064410838
• ISBN 13: 9780064410830
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256