The International Youth Library has named Dance of the Banished by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch a 2015 White Ravens Selection. The White Ravens Catalogue, a list of international children’s books considered especially noteworthy by the IYL’s language specialists, is compiled annually and distributed at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Noteworthiness is determined based on the books’ “universal themes and/or their exceptional and often innovative artistic literary style and design.” (www.childrenslibrary.org/servlet/WhiteRavens)
Here is what the IYL says about Dance of the Banished:
“Renowned Ukrainian-Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch has written a number of books about Canadian internment camps. Her latest YA novel again returns to this little-known topic. Set in Anatolia and Canada from 1913 to 1917, the story follows a teenage couple who are forced to go their separate ways until they are finally reunited years later. At the beginning of World War I, Ali seizes the opportunity to seek work in Canada, but is soon thrown into an internment camp for Enemy Aliens. Zeynep is left behind in their Anatolian home village, where Christian Armenians and Alevi Kurds – both minority groups within the Ottoman Empire – live peacefully side by side. When the country is shaken by revolution and war, the young Alevi girl is determined to do her utmost to save her friends from the Armenian Genocide. Told in diary form and letters from two points of view, this story recounts the horrors of World War I, but also documents people’s great compassion and courage in dangerous times. (Age: 14+)”