![\"Between](\"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Between-Shades-of-Gray.jpg\")
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Between Shades of Gray<\/em> is a story that I think should be required reading for all high school students when they study world history, though\u00a0I think a movie might do a better job of increasing awareness overall. \u00a0As I listened to this audiobook, I kept thinking, “This needs to\u00a0be\u00a0the next\u00a0Schindler’s List<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0Why is it that everyone talks about the horrors of the Holocaust and\u00a0nobody ever talks about the Soviet\u00a0Holodomor?” \u00a0I mean, I didn’t even know the term Holodomor (which roughly translates to “death by hunger”) until this book inspired me to do a little research.<\/p>\n I remember briefly covering Stalin and being taught about his “purges”… but I think we pretty much\u00a0glossed over it on the way to\u00a0an\u00a0in-depth study of the Holocaust. \u00a0I mean,\u00a0I definitely didn’t recall that the total death count was right up there with\u00a0the Holocaust. \u00a0It is estimated that somewhere between 3 and\u00a06\u00a0million people died during\u00a0the Holodomor, with many\u00a0estimates putting the death toll at around 7\u00a0million people. \u00a0SEVEN\u00a0MILLION! \u00a0People talk about the Holocaust all the time. \u00a0They lament the fact that the Nazis killed 6\u00a0million Jews and another 5\u00a0million people (including\u00a0Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, homosexuals, disabled people, and Gypsies) under Hitler’s rule. \u00a0There are numerous Holocaust museums\u00a0and\u00a0memorials\u00a0in addition to\u00a0a Holocaust Remembrance Day. \u00a0But, no one really talks much about what Stalin did. \u00a0My Facebook feed doesn’t “blow up” once a year to remind me of what Stalin did. \u00a0And that is a crying shame. \u00a0Some people\u00a0may debate the death toll and ask,\u00a0“Was it genocide<\/a>?” \u00a0But, regardless of the exact number and the terminology you use, there is no debating the fact that millions of people died under Stalin’s regime.<\/p>\n I appreciate\u00a0the\u00a0author interview at the end of the audiobook, in\u00a0which Ruta Sepetys\u00a0explained\u00a0her personal connection to the\u00a0story, and\u00a0I love that\u00a0the official\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0for the book includes resources like\u00a0a book discussion guide and a video of Ruta Sepetys discussing the novel. \u00a0I’m glad\u00a0that\u00a0this\u00a0book has started to shed some more light on the Holodomor , and I can only pray that this light shines brightly, and widely, from here on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Between Shades of Gray is a story that I think should be required reading for all high school students when they study world history, though\u00a0I think a movie might do a better job of increasing awareness overall. \u00a0As I listened to this audiobook, I kept thinking, “This needs to\u00a0be\u00a0the next\u00a0Schindler’s List. \u00a0Why is it that … Continue reading Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-books-for-young-adults","category-fiction","category-reviewed-by-chrissie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}