The Raven’s Children
Leningrad, 1938. Stalin’s Great Terror has engulfed Russia. In this frightening world, Stalin and his henchmen have absolute power. Like Orwell’s Newspeak, words now mean whatever Stalin wants them to mean. The official line is that the benevolent Raven will help true patriots and look after all children.
We follow seven-year-old Shura and his family who live in a one room flat where they struggle to keep going amid shortages and fear of accusations of treason. Shura’s parents try to hide what’s going on from their children. Then people living in Shura’s concrete block of flats begin to disappear, accused of being ‘enemies of the people’. Nobody knows where they are, or why; and the only safe thing to do is to take care not to ask questions.
But one day, Shura’s father disappears, shortly followed by his mother and little brother. A frightened neighbour tells Shura and his sister Tanya to get to his Auntie Vera’s but Shura isn’t so sure that this is a good idea, so he decides to find the benevolent Raven instead…..
What is brilliant about The Raven’s Children is the way that Shura’s inner world gradually fragments. At seven, he’s unsure about how adults view the world; but, as his problems multiply, he discovers a parallel world where he can speak to birds who have different things to say and where he becomes a sort of ghost in the ‘real’ world. He must learn keep the different strands separate until he can fathom out which is to be trusted.
The book also asks the difficult question: how was a whole generation taken in by Stalin’s propaganda, to the extent that their sense of reality was seriously compromised? Their passivity left their children dangerously vulnerable. I highly recommend this very readable and deeply thoughtful book. 10+
