• Age: 12 to 18
• Grade: 7 to 12

The evocative story of Katya's epic winter journey through Prussia and her eventual imprisonment by the Red Army.

It's especially cold and snowy, that last winter of the Second World War. With the Red Army expected to thunder through the Third Reich at any moment, a sense of doom pervades Katya's world where everyone is expected to believe in the Nazi's final victory. At the end of January, 1945, East Prussian civilians are finally given permission to flee.

Having spent the war years working at an ammunition factory, Katya joins her two sisters, and thousands of others, trekking with overloaded wagons along crowded, snowy roads. They're trying to reach ships waiting along the Baltic coast. They don't make it. Instead, Katya's separated from her sisters and forced to take a long and shameful journey back into the Soviet Union, a country that once labelled her kulak and destroyed her family home. Katya's dragged into a labour camp deep in the Ural Mountains. Here, with her Russian language skills from childhood, she's elevated to a leadership position as a starosta. It's a position fraught with danger as she navigates the two enemy worlds. Katya learns to eat crow, to find love, and to believe in herself.

Gabriele Goldstone writes the books she wanted to read when she was growing up in the Winnipeg suburbs. As the daughter of immigrants, she couldn’t find her family stories in any books and instead escaped into the world of Nancy Drew. She holds a masters’ degree from the University of Manitoba, focusing on German literature, and a BA in English. She is a critically acclaimed author of books for children and young adults, including Crow Stone, Tainted Amber, and Broken Stone.

Gabriele Goldstone's profile page

"Inspired by the powerful memories shared by Goldstone's mother, who spent over two years in a Soviet-forced labour camp, Goldstone, an award-winning author of five books, skillfully wrote this riveting, not overly graphic, compassionate survival story from a unique German-Russian perspective. Highly recommended for high school students." - BC Books for Schools

"Goldstone paints the horrors of war vividly and comprehensively. [Crow Stone is] difficult, harsh, and worthy of attention."- Kirkus

"An engaging story from the start."- Booklist

"Packed with vivid detail, Crow Stone gives an unflinching view into the horrors and unbearable loss of the Second World War and its aftermath."- Barbara Nickel, BC & Yukon Book Prize winner

5 Stars "Highly Recommended"- CM: Canadian Review of Materials

Selected for Best Books for Kids and Teens

"Inspired by the powerful memories shared by Goldstone's mother, who spent over two years in a Soviet-forced labour camp, Goldstone, an award-winning author of five books, skillfully wrote this riveting, not overly graphic, compassionate survival story from a unique German-Russian perspective. Highly recommended for high school students." – BC Books for Schools