In “The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine,” Katharine Marsh’s National Book Award finalist for young people’s literature, a 13-year-old-boy finds a black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings that leads to family secrets. Marsh, who has Russian and Ukrainian heritage, drew from her own family history for her middle grade novel about a famine that killed millions of people in Ukraine in the 1930s. The author lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two children.
BOOKS: What are you reading?
MARSH: I always have several things I’m reading. One is “Grey Bees” by Andrey Kurkov. He is ethnically Russian but has lived all of his life in Ukraine. The novel is about a beekeeper in the Donbas area before the big Russian invasion in 2022. It takes you back to this moment before the current war when Ukraine was off people’s radar. Earlier this summer I read Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead” and then decided to read Dickens’s “David Copperfield.” I wanted to see what she changed in the story and to immerse myself in Dickens, whose work I’ve hardly read. I feel like his characters and some scenes are surprisingly modern. He describes a night of drinking for young David Copperfield that is very relatable to today.
BOOKS: Are you reading anything else?
MARSH: Me and my children watched “American Born Chinese” on Disney Plus, and I realized I had never read the graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. I have been looking through that. It’s interesting to see how Hollywood brought the story more into the present day.
BOOKS: How often do you read graphic novels?
MARSH: My kids like graphic novels so I dip into them. I am a huge Roz Chast fan. “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?,” which is about aging parents, is one of the most brilliants books. A lot of the graphic novels I like are more like memoirs, like Vera Brosgol’s “Be Prepared,” which is about the author going to Russian summer camp.
BOOKS: What was your last best read?
MARSH: It goes back a couple of years, the novel “Circe” by Madeline Miller, who I adore. I also love Greek mythology and adaptations. I liked how she looked at the myth from the perspective of a side character. What I love the most about reading books is entering someone else’s reality with a sense of curiosity and without judgment. Literature is so special because it’s a realm where you are invited to do that.
BOOKS: Were you a bookish kid?
MARSH: I was a hugely bookish kid. I was an only child. I had some family dysfunction going on. It was an escape. Upper middle grade books and YA didn’t exist, so I moved to adult fiction by middle school. I tended to like dark books, as I still do.
BOOKS: What authors were you reading?
MARSH: I loved Flannery O’Connor when I was 14. The shock of it attracted me. I was very much of a completist as a child, so I read everything by someone I liked, even when I didn’t understand it. I remember her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” reverberating through me.
BOOKS: What do you recommend to parents who want their kids to read more?
MARSH: I read with my kids, so that is one thing I suggest. Kids will choose books to read for themselves that are not as challenging but that is what you can read with them. I always have a book I’m reading with my kids, which may be difficult in terms of reading level or content. An example is “Amber & Clay” by Laura Amy Schlitz, my favorite author writing today. She writes in a style that does not talk down to kids. It is set in the Roman Empire and deals with mythology and slavery. There is a lot of stuff for kids that is not as original as her work.
BOOKS: Are you optimistic that teachers and parents will be able to get kids to read more?
MARSH: It depends on the day. The decline in children reading has gotten a little lost in the politics about books. We have to be sure kids are actually reading, that we are creating a culture of literacy instead of just arguing about books.