Silver Threads

Recipient of an Ontario Library Association Best Bet and nominated for the Amelia Frances-Howard Gibbon Award, Silver Threads is a classic fable about the power of love. Ukrainian-Canadian award-winning author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, once again, collaborates with Ukrainian-Canadian award-winning illustrator Michael Martchenko, resulting in a picture book sure to be treasured (for their previous collaboration, please see my review of Enough). Silver Threads is complemented throughout by artistic, vibrantly colored, large illustrations depicting a Ukrainian couple from the Bukovyna region of Ukraine who immigrate to the Canadian frontier. Michael Martchenko, an illustrator of over fifty books for children, was awarded the Ruth Schwartz Award for Children's Book Illustration for Thomas' Snowsuit. The front and back large water color illustrations by Martchenko are only the icing on the cake. His illustrations enhance pages, are sometimes panoramic spanning two pages, and many times are full-page works of art. They very much enhance the story and give it a face, as children and adults get to enjoy both the illustrations and the story simultaneously. Ms. Skrypuch's passion has always been writing stories which capture real life experiences that have been lost or suppressed--In Silver Threads, she continues that fine tradition by drawing on the experiences of her grandparents, George and Anna Forchuk, who were the inspiration for this book. The story begins in the Bukovyna region of Ukraine. A young Ukrainian couple, Ivan and his wife, Anna, escape the hardships in Ukraine by immigrating to Canada, "a land of milk and honey." A sign posted in their Ukrainian village states that 160 acres of land are available in Canada for anyone who will homestead them. They decide to make the ocean journey to Canada's shores, and from there travel for several days by train. But, before they leave, they sprinkle, for the last time, breadcrumbs in front of the spider web which is in a corner of their house. As he does this, Ivan tells his spider "Little spider, this will be the last time I feed you, but now we will need your good luck more than ever." Ivan and Anna remove one pane of glass from a window and take the hinges from the door--they take these to Canada. When they arrive, they build a one-room house on the Canadian frontier. The pane of glass serves as their one window; the hinges are used to open and close their new door. And, as in Ukraine, a tiny black spider nestles in a corner, "spinning its threads of silver"; and, as in Ukraine, Ivan sprinkles a few breadcrumbs in front of the spider's web. One day, Ivan and Anna learn that Canada has gone to war--World War I has begun. Their last night together, before Ivan leaves for the warfront, is Sviat Vechir--Christmas Eve. For the Christmas Eve Supper, called Sviata Vecheria (Holy Supper), Anna prepares the traditional twelve (symbolic of the apostles) meatless, milkless (due to fasting u

Written by the grandchild of one of many interned individuals, Silver Threads is a children's picturebook based on true events of history. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Anna and Ivan, a young married couple from the Ukraine began a new life on a homestead on the Canadian frontier. When World War I erupts, Ivan volunteers to fight for his new country, yet Canadian authorities seize him and send him to an internment camp solely because he is from the Ukraine. Anna must continue struggling to provide for herself and keep her homestead's land cleared for years in spite of her husband's absence. Yet she never gives up hope, and on Christmas Day, a miracle occurs. Silver Threads is a story based on Canada's internment of "enemy aliens" - Ukrainian, European, and Japanese citizens who had committed no crime but were hated solely because of where they came from - during and after World War I. The Canadian government has not acknowledged the injustice nor returned the confiscated belongings to this day. Though Silver Threads is ultimately a heartwarming tale, illustrated in beautiful color, it is also a profound introduction to acts of injustice that humans commit against one another.