The Lost Year

Book cover for The Lost Year
Katherine Marsh

Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the Covid pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation. But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past—one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret.

Set in alternating timelines that connect the present day to the 1930s and the US to the USSR, The Lost Year sheds fresh light on the Holodomor—the horrific famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, which the Soviet government covered up for decades.

The Lost Year is an incredibly timely, page-turning story of family, survival, and sacrifice.

Award Years
2025-2026
Award Category
SC Junior Book Award