Katya is 11 years old. It’s April 1986, and she lives just outside of Chernobyl, Ukraine. For those of you older than 22, you know where this story is going. For those of you younger, let’s just say that April 26, 1986 was a day that not many people will forget: the day that the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor exploded. Katya’s caught in the middle of it; not only having to evacuate her little village for Kiev, but because her father works for the power plant, having to move back, and deal with life near the Dead Zone. Everything about her life changes that day, from something as simple as her friendships and hair color, to the more complex and worrisome health issues.

Andrea White takes this horrific event and gives it a personal touch, which makes it all the more haunting, in my opinion. She fills the book full of facts (with footnotes!) so that it feels like a memoir, rather than a fiction novel. I liked that touch; it made Katya come alive in ways that a straightforward fiction book wouldn’t have. There’s also sub-issues of conflict between Katya’s party-line father, repeating the Communist Party line that nothing was wrong. There’s an undercurrent of hatred and mistrust for the party leaders, for the things they put their people through in the name of the State and the Party. If I didn’t know that it truly happened, I’d be disbelieving: how could a government do that to their citizens. There’s a line at the end, that Katya believes the coverup of Chernobyl lead to the Ukraine’s decision to leave the USSR by 1991, and I believe it. Moscow treated the Ukranian citizens abominably.

This book is haunting, and difficult to get through, but only because the events were haunting and difficult to get through. White handles this with grace and style and love, and makes it all come alive. Which makes this book worth reading.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)