You, With Your Waiting - Paperback

by Leslie Lacin (Author)

In 1941, as Nazi forces advance into the Soviet Union, ten-year-old Avsey and his older sister Bronya are forced into a world where nothing is certain-not safety, not truth, not even the meaning of courage.

Avsey, a precocious stamp collector, believes in heroes. He studies the figures on his stamps and imagines himself becoming one-someone who can bring order to chaos. But war does not unfold according to the rules he understands.

Bronya, newly admitted to the Moscow Conservatory, is older and more aware of what is being lost. When their mother falls ill, she must choose between caring for her brother and answering a different call of duty in a country at war.

As they are swept into evacuation, displacement, and the shifting front lines of the North Caucasus, both children must navigate a reality where the Holocaust is not always named, and danger is not always visible.

At the center of the novel lies a largely overlooked history: the mass murder of Jews in places like Zmiivska Balka in Rostov-on-Don-one of the largest Holocaust massacres on Soviet soil, and one many readers have never encountered.

You, With Your Waiting is a story of innocence under pressure, of siblings bound together in uncertainty, and of the fragile, complicated search for truth in a world at war.

Perfect for readers of historical fiction who are drawn to lesser-known perspectives of World War II and the Holocaust.