The days are getting shorter and the nights longer. Somehow that triggered a memory of this book title. William Durbin writes wonderful historical fiction, and this is another really good book by this author.
In 1934, Jake Maki is content with his life in a Finnish community on the Mesabi Iron Range. Then a group of Russian recruiters visited one day and pursuaded Jake's dad to move the family to the province of Karelia in Russia. At first, everything went well for the new arrivals, but when Joseph Stalin seized power, the democratic programs and ideas were no longer welcome, and Jake's father was put in jail. Suddenly Jake was the family leader and had to make a crucial decision: "Can they/should they try to escape to Finland on the darkest and coldest evening of the winter?" This story is based on historical events that have only been uncovered since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The book won the Minnesota Book Award in 2005.
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