Marching North

Written by Yolanda T. Marshall

Art by Daria Lavrova

Chalkboard Publishing

978-1-771059022

40 pp.

Ages 5–10

February 2026

 

A visit to Aunty Evangelina's is more than just a visit to enjoy some Bajan souse. It's a deep dive into history and heritage and lessons in acceptance.

From Marching North, written by Yolanda T. Marshall, illustrated by Daria Lavrova

When the child asks Aunty about getting into an altercation with her friend Ava after Ava made fun of a new boy's accent and the child stood up for him, Aunty Evangelina tells her,

Don't doubt the direction you chose. You picked your battle and you won. (pg. 9)

With talk of direction, Aunty Evangelina shows her an old compass, one of the many story-filled treasures that decorate her house. That sparks a discussion about the soldiers in some of her pictures, of which there are many, and their Caribbean origins. Most of all the child asks whether everyone was proud of them for their bravery. And Aunty tells her about the reality for Black soldiers who were often treated unkindly and might have had to challenge the government for the right to join the fighting forces.

From Marching North, written by Yolanda T. Marshall, illustrated by Daria Lavrova

Aunty introduces the child to eight extraordinary Black veterans who served Canada during the First and Second World Wars. Their names, perhaps less recognizable than they should be, were Isaac Phills, George Livingstone, William Gale, Thamis Gale, Ethelbert Lionel Cross, Hewburn Greenidge, Dr. Joseph Liverpool, and Owen Rowe. But Aunty also gives them substance beyond their military service. She speaks of the countries of their origins, from Guyana to Trinidad and Tobago, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. She speaks of their contributions to society and their cultures, whether through Caribana, now called the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, or to fields such as law and medicine. Aunty wants Abiola to know and remember these people and stand up for the freedoms they defended.

From Marching North, written by Yolanda T. Marshall, illustrated by Daria Lavrova

Though the story of Marching North is presented as a picture book, it is a narrative with information wrapped in a simple plot of a child learning how to do what is right. Yolanda T. Marshall, whose previously reviewed picture books (e.g., Big Birthday Wishes, 2025; What's in the Cookie Tin?, 2024; Hot Cross Buns for Everyone!, 2022) were lighthearted, now approaches a serious topic in Marching North. It's one of awareness of the contributions of Black Canadians who chose to join the military forces even amidst discrimination and disrespect that would have discouraged most. These men—perhaps there were Black women soldiers as well though there are none highlighted in Marching North—deserve recognition and honour for what they did. And the lesson that Abiola—whose African name means born in honour or wealth—takes from these men and her Aunty is that she will choose the direction she will take in life and make a difference. (pg. 33) 

I was captivated by Daria Lavrova's art. At first glance, it reminded me of that iconic painting by Norman Rockwell titled The Problem We All Live With (1964; oil on canvas, 91 cm × 150 cm [36 in × 58 in], Norman Rockwell Museum) in which a young Ruby Bridges is escorted by marshals to her desegregated school. It is a powerful statement about courage and strength in the face of racism, and that same message is reflected in Yolanda T. Marshall's text of Marching North. But Russian-born Daria Lavrova goes beyond that similarity—and that representation may all be in my interpretation—and adds layers by blending images of the Caribbean homes of these veterans with symbols of their new country of Canada. How Daria Lavrova created such beauty and movement, as well as strength of character and pride in her characters, is astonishing to me.

 

For this Black History month and for every lesson on the veterans who fought for Canada, Marching North will be a valuable addition. Not only do we learn about the contributions of Black Canadians with whose names many of us are sadly unfamiliar, we can acknowledge the bravery shown and sacrifices that they and others made. And, in focusing on what we should be doing, i.e., following the right path, we won't lose sight of what's important.

Under Attack (Kidnapped From Ukraine, #1)

 

Written by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

 Scholastic

978-1-546104513

320 pp.

Ages 8-13

January 2025

 

Apologies to author Marsha Skrypuch and Scholastic for my tardy review of this exceptional novel. They kindly ensured I received a copy of Under Attack and, while a gripping read, it has an emotional component for me, making my reading of it far more challenging. But, because it is so well written and told with such compassion and insight, I could not stay away from Under Attack. Years from now, readers will look to Under Attack as an authentic commentary of how the attack on Ukraine that started in 2022 played out for children and their families. 

 

Twelve-year-old Dariia Popkova's story did not just start on February 24, 2022, although this is the starting point of Under Attack. Her life in her family's fourth floor apartment in Mariupol would have been typical. Her father worked at the Azovstal steel plant. Her mother worked at a nail salon. And Dariia and her twin sister Rada went to school, had friends, did crafts, and loved using their cell phones. Then Putin declares a "special military operation" to free Ukrainians from their "Nazi" regime. When the first bomb hits their apartment, Dariia and her mother are separated from Dariia's dad and Rada. With this begins a separation of place and experience as they try to find their way back together.

 

Dariia and her mother shelter in a basement of a school supply depot with many others. Some are strangers like Sonya Marynovska and her four-year-old daughter Ariadna and two Tatar boys Rustem and Asan, but also a classmate Natalia and her dog Mimi. From their basement base, the twenty-eight hunker down, make unsafe outings to scavenge for food and water and get cell phone reception. They are "eating practically nothing, drinking bad water, and hearing the thunder of nonstop bombing overhead." (p. 53) Weeks turn into months and though Dariia and her mom are first looking to get to the Avostal steel plant where her father's army reserve is stationed and Rada is safe, ultimately they get the message to get to the humanitarian corridor and go to Zaporizhzhia, a city in southeast Ukraine. 

This wasn't a war.
This was the Russian Federation executing civilians because they were Ukrainians.
It was terrifying and senseless. (p. 82) 

Stealing an abandoned car, amidst the continued shelling, roaming tanks with white Z markings, and marauding Russian soldiers, Dariia, her mother, Rustem, Ariadna and Mimi the dog don't get very far before they are stopped and sent to a "filtration center" where they are told they would be evacuated to safer parts of Russia. 

 

Dariia, now separated from her mother, is sent with Rustem and other children–Katya, Volodya, Ihor, Dmytro and siblings Lilia and Vadim–to the Romashka Children's Camp where they are told about Putin, the benevolent president, who has helped rescue them from the Nazi regime of Zelensky. The children know it is propaganda but play along.

It made me angry that the Russians had brought me to this prison that looked and smelled like freedom. (p. 136)

When they are sent to their respective Russian "foster homes," the children vow to get in touch whenever they can with a Gmail account Liliya and Vadim had created to drop messages. Separated from any family they might have and each other, they are determined to keep their connections to each other, to the truth and their homeland.

This could be historical fiction. It could have been a story from the 1940s. I wish that it were. But it's a contemporary story from 2022 through the present, recounting the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the continuing war in a fictionalized story. Someday Under Attack will be historical fiction and readers will shake their heads at the senselessness of the war. I can only hope that they'll be looking back from a time when Ukraine is free from Russian oppression and violence.

While a fictionalized story, Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch takes the time and effort to understand the truths, like the truth about how the war started, the propaganda levelled at both Ukrainians and Russians, and the impact of the war on Ukrainians, from children to workers to the elderly. It is a tough story because of these truths which are so distressing and disheartening. Still Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch is a master at telling such stories (e.g., Winterkill, Traitors Among Us, Dance of the Banished, and Making Bombs for Hitler), ensuring a sensitivity to her characters and her readers, and a thoroughness and accuracy of details.

It's fitting that I review Under Attack on a day which Christians commemorate as Good Friday. Like the day, this book is one of grief and injustice. And it is one that requires contemplation. We can only hope that after the grief comes a resurrection for Ukraine and a future of peace. Only history, and Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's follow-up books in the Kidnapped From Ukraine series, will tell.

• • • • • • •

Standoff, Book 2 in Kidnapped from Ukraine, releases in October, 2025.

 

 

Endgame: The Secret Force 136

Written by Catherine Little

Illustrated by Sean Huang

Plumleaf Press

978-1-738898244

32 pp.

All ages

October 2023

This is a picture book. But Endgame: The Secret Force 136 is more than a picture book. It's a story within a story with another story. There's an intergenerational story which segues into a story from World War II that is framed by the playing of a game of Chinese chess that is depicted as an actual battle in illustrations. It may sound complicated and yet it all works.

From Endgame: The Secret Force 136, written by Catherine Little, illus. by Sean Huang

A child regularly visits his great-grandfather Tai Gong with his mother and is gifted with his elder's Chinese chess set on his tenth birthday. The boy enjoys learning the new game, called Xiangqi or elephant chess, with its two battling armies of generals, advisers, elephants, chariots, cannons, and soldiers, but he can never win over his Tai Gong.  Tai Gong advises him:

“You have to plan ahead, Alex,” Tai Gong replied. “As I have told you many times, slow down and plan your strategies. Focus on the big picture.”

From Endgame: The Secret Force 136, written by Catherine Little, illus. by Sean Huang

During one visit, Tai Gong shows Alex some faded photographs he keeps in his wallet. The photos show groups of men, some in uniforms, and Tai Gong says he needs to tell Alex about the stories of these photos. As he recalls discrimination he and other Chinese Canadians endured, many still felt the need to fight for their country during World War II. Though they were rejected initially, when the enemy occupied much of Southeast Asia, they were accepted into Secret Force 136 for special missions. And though he speaks of dangerous situations, Alex's tai gong is convinced it was all worth it because of the progress that happened upon their return. It was all about the endgame, something he hopes to impart to his great-grandson as they play Xiangqi.

From Endgame: The Secret Force 136, written by Catherine Little, illus. by Sean Huang

There is a history lesson in Endgame: The Secret Force 136, and Catherine Little provides extensive historical notes about the racial discrimination Chinese Canadians faced, about the Secret Force 136 including bios of several of the team's members, and about the impact of the Chinese Canadian war effort. While her focus may be on the history, as shared through a boy's interaction with his great-grandfather, she also embeds in the playing of the ancient game of Xiangqi which she also highlights in her appended notes. This could have been a very dry exposé of a WWII special operation but by tying the story of the strategies employed in a game of chess with the memories of an elderly Chinese Canadian, Catherine Little makes the story more personal. This is his story, and he speaks of it because he knows of it. And he learned valuable lessons for war but also for life but now he can share that strategizing so that his great-grandson may also benefit.

The realism of the child's interactions with his great-grandfather and his Tai Gong's experiences are depicted well in the lush paintings of Saskatchewan artist Sean Huang who takes readers from a contemporary setting to that of World War II and also to a time when warriors wore lamellar armour and carried spears. Because the story is one based in history, it's appropriate that Sean Huang maintains that realism so that a young reader might visualize their own interaction with a grandparent, or asking about the past, or looking to understand who is in photos. (The illustration of the Tai Gong's hands and the photographs is so lifelike that it will be immediately familiar and evocative of age and nostalgia.)

Players of chess and other games often speak of the endgame as the final stage and Alex learns about the perspective he must take to have a successful endgame. But his Tai Gong knows that there are many endgames in life, those final steps that can lead to success, to progress, and to resolution. His life has had many endgames and while they may or may not have always felt triumphant, they were surely noteworthy, if not for him then for others.

The Dragonfly Effect (Book 3 of The Hypnotists)

by Gordon Korman

Scholastic Press

978-0-545-50336-5

243 pp.

Ages 9-12

August 2015

When readers last visited with 12-year-old Jackson Opus, the kid had major problems and they all stemmed from the evil Dr. Elias Mako who was determined to manipulate Jax, a powerful hypnotist, into doing his mesmeric bidding.  Thankfully, Book 2 of The Hypnotists, The Memory Maze, ended with Mako being sent to jail, and Jax and his parents being whisked away by the military for their protection.  But, while the Opuses are currently safely ensconced at Fort Calhoun and Jax assists the very serious Colonel Brassmeyer in developing hypnotism as a weapon system as part of HoWarD, the Hypnotic Warfare Research Department, life isn’t as rosy as it might be expected to be.

Jax’s Mom and Dad are bored and miserable, not even able to go bird-watching without getting arrested for leaving without their identification. Not surprizing that Dad has become addicted to the FreeForAll website with its myriad of games and activites, not the least of which is tending to his virtual grass in Lawn Master!  Jax isn’t faring much better, having to deal with the humourless Colonel Brassmeyer, the HoWaRD psychiatrist Captain Pedroia, and the other hypnotists including the nasty Wilson DeVries, former thug for Mako, and eight-year-old orphan and powerful though unskilled hypnotist Stanley X.

In addition to their various activities including bending (hypnotizing) soldiers and each other–which is when Jax realizes how powerful Stanley is–and trying to teach hypnotism to ordinary people, Jax has been recruited to participate in Operation Aurora.  Using remote hypnotism, Jax mesmerizes all 753 volunteer inhabitants at an artificial test community called Delta Prime to stop all activity at a set time.  The collateral damage is frightening to Jax, though Brassmeyer’s miliary sense of duty keeps him from being bothered by it.  Not surprising that when Jax suspects that someone is using remote hypnotism via the FreeForAll website and using the newly-adopted Stanley, the teen hypnotist springs into action, regardless of the army’s intentions for him.

If you’ve read the earlier two books in The Hypnotists series, you’ll know that Gordon Korman keeps readers on the edge of their seats, anticipating the next manipulation by an evil one, or joining in on chase or escape from entrapment or worrying about whom to trust.  Jax’s life is an action-packed adventure he hopes he’ll live through.  And Jax is such a decent kid.  He’s concerned about how miserable his parents are at the cost of his safety.  He’s appalled by Brassmeyer’s relentless experimentation with hypnotism to develop it as a powerful weapon, regardless of the consequences.  And he seems to want to watch out for everyone at HoWaRD, recognizing their vulnerabilities, even the vicious Wilson.

But Gordon Korman is the master of tongue-in-cheek and keeps the reader smiling with his quips and barbs at everything from the military and online games, to bus drivers, and traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel.  

…he noticed Ashton Opus was still playing Lawn Master.  It was almost four hours now!

       In Lawn Master, you could plant, water, fertilize, weed, cut, top-dress, spray, and aerate your virtual lawn.  Dad had just spent the last four hours literally watching grass grow.  It wasn’t even real grass! (pg. 97-8)

But amidst all the skirmishes and problem-solving, Gordon Korman has Jax finding a way, even manipulating it, for himself to lead a “normal” life, and that “happy” ending in The Dragonfly Effect–even though it is important to recognize that, as Jax does, that “It was impossible to command someone to be happy” (pg. 22)–is worth the price, all costs included.

Behind Enemy Lines : World War II, Sam Frederiksen, Nazi-Occupied Europe, 1944

by Carol Matas
Scholastic Canada
978-0-545-99066-0
196 pp.
Ages 9-12
2012

Scholastic Canada's new historical fiction series for boys, I am Canada, is a brilliant twin to their Dear Canada series, whose female protagonist and diary entry emphases are often tiresome for boys interested in historical fiction. Behind Enemy Lines: World War II is the fifth book in this series, due out in February.

Sam Frederiksen is an eighteen-year-old Canadian airman/gunner when his plane is shot down over Nazi-occupied France in 1944.  He and the injured navigator, Bill, are rescued by a French boy of the French Resistance who takes them to safety.  Sam joins other Allies, including James Thompson, a Brit, and Ben Webber, an American, at a local Resistance fighter's farm to help sabotage the infrastructure the Nazis use (e.g., railroads, etc.). When the farmer's daughter's fiancé is arrested, she betrays her parents and the Allies, hoping to secure his release. Luckily, the farmer anticipates the Germans' strategy and moves the Allied airmen to safety, though his own farm is burned to the ground.

Sam often thinks about his Danish family back in Winnipeg, believing in the generosity of people such as his father, the doctor, and finds it hard to believe the rumours of Hitler's assault on the Jewish people and the treachery of others in supporting their actions.  Sam is safely taken to Paris, where he meets up with Max, a Jewish member of his downed air crew,  but they are betrayed and handed over to the Germans, along with other French Resistance fighters and Allies.  Sam begins to really see the true circumstances of the occupation, especially after they are sent to Buchenwald, the concentration camp.  There Sam is witness to the emaciated prisoners in their blue and white striped pyjamas, and the cruel SS officers with dogs, and the vile smells coming from ever-burning chimneys, but Sam still holds some hope that they will be treated as POWs according to the Geneva Convention, just as POWs in Canada were being treated.

Sam's naiveté is not borne of ignorance but rather hope and honour.  He is relentless in adhering to the protocol that he only share his name, rank and service number, and in following the directions of the Allied officers they choose to lead them. When the prisoners in his cattle car are taken off and marched away at gunpoint, after an escape attempt, they are sure of their execution, but still do not cower or show shame, as they recognized the honour in following their orders to escape from the enemy.  By availing himself of the help of so many strangers and of the information they share with him, Sam gains both in wisdom and heart, during a time when many were abandoning both.

Surprisingly, there is a factual basis for this story, and Carol Matas, always a thorough researcher of history, provides extensive notes about it.  (An NFB documentary from 1994, titled The Lucky Ones: Allied Airmen and Buchenwald by Michael Allder also tells the story.) Matas provides additional notes related to the role of Canadians in WWII air operations, the work of the French Resistance fighters and the Holocaust, as well as images, of airmen and concentration camp prisoners.