Welcome to Litsy!

Gatsby, descendant of wolves, thinks this is a great title. Of course, she‘s not the one reading about the horrors of the starvation and atrocities visited on women and children in East Prussia as WWII comes to a close. #schnauzersoflitsy

Question: what can you do when a book isn‘t in the Goodreads database? I posted my review of the tagged book on LibraryThing and went to do the same on Goodreads, but it isn‘t listed. Any suggestions?

This was a fast read because the book is short, the writing is excellent, and the story is dramatic and compelling. It is also a difficult book to read because of the subject matter. I knew nothing about the “wolf children” until I read this, and it‘s something that should be more widely known. The suffering the characters endure is heartbreaking, yet so eloquently described. So grateful I got this through #earlyreviewers 4⭐️

This prompted me to check a map and history sources. It is set in East Prussia and Lithuania in the immediate aftermath of WWII. East Prussia was overrun by the Soviets, and according to my sources, most of the German population was evacuated to Germany. This novel is about a German family still in East Prussia and struggling to remain alive. Not an easy subject, but compelling so far.

I have been very lucky with LibraryThing #earlyreviewer books. Another arrived today, and this looks interesting. It‘s translated from Lithuanian, and apparently was the book of the year in Lithuania when it was published in 2011. Looking forward to this.