num_pages: 208
description: In this novel by John Wilson set during the Battle of Stalingrad, three participants -- two fighters and a boy -- are caught in its horrors. Their story is told over seven days of fierce and deadly street-by-street fighting. Vasily is a patriotic Russian soldier determined to rid his country of the hated Nazi invaders -- if he can stay alive long enough. Conrad is a German tank officer, part of the seemingly unstoppable force sweeping eastward over the steppe, expecting a quick victory over Stalin's ill-trained and badly equipped army. Between them is eight-year-old Sergei, whose home is the maze of rubble that used to be the city of Stalingrad. None of them can know that their fates will be intertwined as the cataclysm engulfs them.
language: English
title: Four Steps to Death
titlecomplete: Four Steps to Death
genres: Fiction, World War II, Young Adult, Historical, War, Historical Fiction
ratings_count: 108
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize
publisher: Kids Can Press