Books by Ruta Sepetys

In a starred review, Kirkus called Sepetys’ Between Shades of Gray a “fluidly written historical novel” that “tackles a topic woefully underdiscussed in English-language children’s fiction: Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror.” The inspiration behind this debut novel was Sepetys’ father, who escaped from Lithuania as a young boy. Intensely proud of her Lithuanian heritage, Sepetys admits that she cried often while writing her book, and Kirkus believes that the story in Between Shades of Gray is one that “needs telling.”