When Historical Fiction Meets Present-Day War: Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s Kidnapped from Ukraine Series and the Russia–Ukraine War
Journal: Children s Literature in Education
Year: 2025

This essay analyzes narrative strategy and ideology in children’s historical fiction, focusing on how Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, a Ukrainian Canadian author of Anglophone historical literature, portrays the Russia–Ukraine war in the first two volumes of her Kidnapped from Ukraine series. Writing for North American readers who may be unfamiliar with the region’s complex history, Skrypuch draws on conflicting Russian and Ukrainian cultural memories of the Second World War to illustrate their ideolog