Scan barcode
A review by sistermagpie
The Raven's Children by Yulia Yakovleva, Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
4.0
It looks like there's no entry here for the original Russian-language version, Дети ворона, so I'll use this one. This was intense! The story starts out in the ordinary world--ordinary for 1938 USSR, where Shurka lives an ordinary life with his family and friend. The one truly scary thing in his world are spies--especially when he thinks he may have met one who bought him some ice cream and spends a night sure he's going to be dead by morning of poison.
But that imaginary fear pales next to the reality of first his father disappearing, then waking up to find his mother and little brother gone too, taken by a mysterious figure called The Black Raven, as far as Shurka knows. At this point Shurka's world gets positively surreal, as only a Stalinist nightmare can be, as he joins the crowds of people waiting outside the grey house of the Black Raven, hoping he'll release their innocent family members.
But that imaginary fear pales next to the reality of first his father disappearing, then waking up to find his mother and little brother gone too, taken by a mysterious figure called The Black Raven, as far as Shurka knows. At this point Shurka's world gets positively surreal, as only a Stalinist nightmare can be, as he joins the crowds of people waiting outside the grey house of the Black Raven, hoping he'll release their innocent family members.