Mari(MM)- Journalist, writer, definitely not poet.But flash fiction's her game. I like to write questions and answers, stories and poems, non-fiction and flash-fiction. I like to hike mountains and see the road winding below and think how lucky I am to be here and not rushing somewhere in a car. I like to hear birdsong and rustling leaves. I like cycling too, down small country roads and little boreens to a small little field that maybe has a horse, or three cows and a magpie. I love taking long walks to the sea, and then just sitting there watching it and watching birds. Siberia is a sate of mind.Īoife- I am a teenage writer and poet.

This is the story that gave me the idea for Sloe and her adventures.The Siberia I'm talking about in this story is not a place. When Allied soldiers finally entered the facility, they found the emciated bodies of the botanist lying beside full sacks of potatoes, maize and wheat, a priceless genetic legacy for which they had given their lives. The greatest seedbank in the world is held in Lenigrad.In the Second World War.half a million people starved, but the curators of the seedbank barricaded themselves in, and defended their stocks - the hope of the future - from the starving citizens. In fact, I might recommend it on the strength of the note at the end alone. Sloe's love for the tiny animals is real and her adventures as she tries to make it back to her mother are difficult and trying. How odd this book seems, though no less odd than the other I read, but it is.believable. It might be true that people will easier believe a big lie than a small one, and that is true here. I could see everything as though it was before me, and the people fit cleanly into it. The world as Halam created it was spectacular. Each element is warped and rearranged to fit with the others but they are no less pure for that. Like the blurb says, it is a mix of science, adventure, and fairy tale. Sloe had to make the journey alone.Sloe becomes a heroine, equal to anything, in this dazzling blend of science, adventure, and fairy tale. From the blurb: When Rosita was tiny.she and her mama had to go and live in an ugly place.a prison camp.she didn't understand her mama's magic.She only knew she had to keep the secret until Mama said it was time to start on the great journey.But once Rosita grew up to be a tough, cynical girl called Sloe.Mama was gone.

Siberia by Ann Halam