The Blackbird Girls

Blankman, Anne.  The Blackbird Girls.  2020.  Viking Press, New York, New York.

On April 26, 1986 the worst Nuclear Disaster in History happened.  An explosion occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor during a standard safety drill.  The explosion and fire released large amounts of radiation into the environment and forever changed life in the Ukraine.

image: World Cat

On the 26th, with the devastation of the reaction unknown to the general public, life continued on as it always had.  People ran errands, worked in their gardens, went to school, and played in the mysterious foam that was on the ground.

Valentina and Oksana lived in the same building and attended the same school.  The girls were not friends with each other, even though their fathers worked together at the power plant.  The devastation in the wake of the explosion was phenomenal.  Oksana's father did not survive the initial explosion, and Valentina's father was deathly ill with radiation poisoning. 

When the mandatory evacuations were announced, the girls found themselves in line for the same bus.  Each and every person was scanned with a Geiger Counter as they got onto the bus.  If their levels of radiation were too high, they were sent to a hospital.  Oksana's mother was deemed to be to ill, so she was sent to a hospital.  Valentina's mother found herself unexpectedly in charge of both girls.  Fearful of a bus that would send them to Kiev and keep them close to the radiation, she found a bus that would take them to Moscow - where she hoped to meet up with a college friend who could shelter them.

As the girls face an uncertain future and people who are afraid to help them or shelter them for fear of getting sick from them, Valentina's mother is forced to send the girls to her own mother in Leningrad.  A woman who had dangerous ideas and held dangerous beliefs.  As the two girls live with Babulya, they discover an unconditional love and friendship forged through deep trials and tribulations.  

The story moves between tales of flight and adaptation - between Oksana and Valentina and Valentina's grandmother and her saviors during WW 2.  The struggle all of the girls faced for survival in the face of great odds against them, and how each girl found her secret best friend, a friendship that lasts a lifetime - her Black Bird Girl.



I highly recommend this book.  The history of the Chernobyl Accident is relatively new, and stories about that time from Russia are difficult to find.  I enjoyed the story, and the look into Russian Culture and History.  The character of Valentina is Jewish.  I did not understand the challenges faced by Jews in recent Russian History.  The author does an excellent job of exploring Bubulya's faith, and what it has meant for her over the course of her lifetime.

Author's Web Site: http://www.anneblankman.com/

Information about the Chernobyl Disaster from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/chernobyl-bg.html