Title: Between Shades of Gray
Description: Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously–and at great risk–documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives.
Subjects: Labor camps, Juvenile fiction, Fiction, Survival, History, Large type books, Historical fiction, Children's fiction, Survival, fiction, Siberia (russia), fiction, Soviet union, history, fiction, Europe, history, fiction, Survivalism, World War, 1939-1945, Deportations from Lithuania, Concentration camps, Resilience (Personality trait), Drawing, Souvenirs (Keepsakes), Romans, nouvelles, etc. pour la jeunesse, Histoire, Camps de concentration, Résilience (Trait de personnalité), Roman historique, Deportation, Romans historiques, Guerre mondiale, 1939-1945, Romans, Déportés lituaniens, Dessin, Souvenir, Campos de concentración, Historia, Ficción juvenil, Supervivencia, nyt:chapter-books=2011-04-10, New York Times bestseller, New York Times reviewed
Places: Siberia (Russia), Lithuania, Soviet Union, Siberia, Arctic Circle, Russia (Federation), Lituanie, Russie, Sibérie, URSS, Russi
People: Lina Vilkas, Andrius Arvydas, Mr. Stalas, Nikolai Kretzsky, Mrs. Arvydas, Elena Vilkas, Janina, Jonas Vilkas, Joana, Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)
Time periods: 20th century, Soviet occupation, 1940-1941, 1925-1953, 1941, 1940-1941 (Occupation soviétique)