Ages 13-18

One afternoon, not very long after our arrival at Lake Wichikagan, Lumley and I found ourselves on the summit of a rising ground which was scantily clothed with trees, and from the top of which we could see the region all round like a map spread at our feet. We were out after a black bear whose footprints had led us to the spot. "Bruin has escaped us this time, " said Lumley, "and I don't feel disposed to go after him any further. You see, Max, I must be up early tomorrow to superintend Coppet at his water mill, so I would advise resting here a bit to refresh ourselves at this spring, and then make tracks for home."

It was hunger that drove 12-year-old Boris and his friend, Nadia, to forage for potatoes in the forbidden No-man’s-land that lay between the Russian and German lines outside the besieged city of Leningrad. But the long walk in the bitter cold, through miles of ice and snow, was too difficult for Nadia. As she lay on the ice, collapsed from exhaustion, Boris was at his wits’ end. When German patrol rescued the children and delivered them safely to the Russian lines, Boris learned that the hated enemy were not monsters — just ordinary men like any others — and that in war, everyone is the victim. Set in Leningrad during the dreadful 500 days in 1942-43 when it lay under siege by the German army, Boris is the story of a courageous boy who faces the bitter life-and-death realities of war and human survival, and, with a growing sense of compassion for all mankind, looks hopefully toward the future when all men can lay down their arms and embrace one another as brothers.