Escape from Chernobyl

October 15, 2021
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster changes the lives of three Soviet teenagers. Yuri, who's 16, his 13-year-old cousin, Alina, and their friend Sofiya live comfortable lives in Pripyat, Ukraine--until the morning of April 26, 1986. Yuri is a loyal Soviet citizen and an intern at the power plant who dreams of joining the ranks of nuclear engineers. He is mopping the floors when he hears the explosions of the reactor accident. Sofiya's father, a nuclear engineer, warns her to stay inside and rushes to the plant to help. Meanwhile, Alina, who is portrayed with what seems to be undiagnosed OCD, is forced to leave her friend and cousin behind as her family is secretly hustled out of the city by a Communist Party official who knows the truth. All characters are presumably White. Though the author admittedly takes a few liberties and the story is fictionalized, the book is well researched and vividly portrays the Chernobyl disaster. The author includes details that paint a picture of the time and place, sprinkling italicized Russian terms and their explanations throughout. He walks a delicate line in dealing with these tragic and politically complex events, mostly with success. A few gory moments may disturb some readers, but excluding them would sanitize the human cost of the disaster. Political maneuvering and corruption are introduced but are insufficiently explored as a cause of the tragedy. Exciting, tragic, and gritty. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 8-13)

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November 1, 2021
Alternating perspectives between three heroic young people living in Pripyat, Ukraine, Marino (the Plot to Kill Hitler series) puts a gripping fictional spin on the April 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Sixteen-year-old Yuri Fomichev is a Soviet citizen interning at the plant while staying with his aunt and uncle. He’s working the night shift when reactor four explodes, and he collaborates with others to salvage the situation and attempt a rescue. His cousin, 13-year-old Alina, who seems to have OCD, is whisked away from town with her brother; eventually, the two make their way back to look for their friends, fleeing at night back to Pripyat. And 15-year-old Sofiya Kozlov, Alina’s outgoing best friend, is the daughter of one of the plant’s nuclear engineers. When party officials downplay the explosion, Sofiya’s father tells her the true magnitude of the danger, and she takes it upon herself to warn her neighbors. Highlighting eerie moments (a column of light from the destroyed reactor lances the night sky), the denial of science by political appointees, and the swift and deadly effects of radiation poisoning, Marino paints a vivid, if not always fully contextualized, picture of the catastrophe, its dangers, and a government willing to cover it all up. Ages 8–12.