“Wintering” by Anastasia Kolendo is about a Ukrainian high schooler who goes to live with her grandfather in the Ural mountains. She befriends a goose who she calls Derrida and a boy named Nikifor.

My knowledge of WW2 history was refreshed. The cranky Grandpa says,

“You little snot! I marched two thousand kilometers to Moscow and then another two thousand to Berlin for you. In the winter. In just one sock! You’d all be speaking German if it weren’t for me, you guttersnipes!”