A Winter's Day in 1939

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Description

Sometimes your only weapon is the will to survive ... Taken from their home, forced to leave their country, put to work in labour camps, frozen and starved, Adam and his family doubt that they will ever make it out alive. Even if they were to get away, they might freeze to death, or starve, or the bears might get them. For the Polish refugees, the whole of the USSR becomes a prison from which there is seemingly no escape. Thorough research and real-life family history combines this powerful story of one family's struggle to survive. This is a harrowing, compelling story of courage hope based on Melinda Szymanik's own father's journey across Europe during World War II.

Author Bio

Melinda Szymanik is the author of the picture books Clever Moo and The Were-Nana, which won the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards Children's Choice Award in 2009. A Winter's Day in 1939 is a novel close to Melinda's heart as it is based on her own father's journey across Europe during World War Two. Melinda has written two other novels, Jack the Viking (Scholastic, 2008) and The Half Life of Ryan Davis (Pear Jam, 2011).