children’s books when I was growing up, so the very discovery of how deep and philosophical or how fun and silly children’s books can be evoked something new in me. “Additionally, living in the USA I struggled without a wide usage of the Ukrainian language on the daily basis. I think I started to write children’s books because I wanted to practice and enjoy my language as well as to have a good memory about the complexity of what it means to be a kid. This experience led me to my MA and PhD in children’s literature and these two educational experiences opened the vibrant world of what children’s book might be.” Part of that vibrancy comes from the illustrations, and you can read an interview with illustrator Kateryna Stepanishcheva on the next pages. Oksana says of the collaboration for Silent Night, My Astronaut: “Despite the complexity of the theme, the illustrations add vibrancy and dynamics. They expand the verbal narration by encouraging empathic response and, I hope, the activism and support.” Despite living in the US, Oksana is still feeling the effects of war deeply. She says: “To paraphrase the writer and philanthropist Gertrude Stein, who said ‘America is my country and Paris is my hometown,’ I can say ‘Ukraine is my country and Pennsylvania is my home state (for now)’.”
That connection to her home country is still strong and made stronger because of the family and friends who still reside there. Oksana says: “It has been almost two years and a half, since the beginning of full-scale invasion. There are a few things that are with me as the purest memory and a few things that come with the other terror Russia does today. If we refer to February, 2022, I can say that part of my family was hiding in the shelters and that part of my family was under the destroyed bridge in
Voices of Children.
Irpin. They were disconnected and lost. “Although, I live in the USA, my family is in Ukraine. So I was the first one to call my mother, saying: ‘The war! Go to the shelter!’ It just happened that she did not follow events via social media, and social media often brings news much faster. “But there is another layer of memory.
For instance, when on 8 July 2024 Russians bombed Kyiv Children’s hospital Okhmatdyt, Ukraine’s largest paediatric clinic, known for its cancer treatments, I immediately ‘saw’ the episodes of 9 March 2022, when Russian forces bombed a maternity hospital in Mariupol… I mean trauma is
18 PEN&INC.
Autumn-Winter 2024
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