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Description

Two issues preoccupy twelve-year-old Artem, living with his mother and younger brother Yuri in Chernihiv, Ukraine. He must navigate adolescence without the direct guidance of his father, who works construction in New York, USA, and his feelings for his best friend Viktor are shifting in a way he knows he must hide. But Artem’s coming-of-age story is interrupted by the invasion of the Russian army on February 24, 2022. Making their way across war-torn Ukraine toward the Polish border in hopes of reuniting with their father, the brothers experience hunger, severe illness, and the terror of witnessing the murder of family members. The Sunflower Boys draws on accounts of young Ukrainians author Sam Wachman taught in refugee settlements, who asked him to tell their story. The novel prompts many kinds of moral reckoning: What can we do to counteract human-on-human brutality in the small spheres of ordinary experience? How can we (including children and young people) as citizens raise our voices in ways that might summon political intervention to defend the defenseless?

Publication Date

2026

Publisher

Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children

City

Montclair

Keywords

adolescence, brothers, LGBTQ romance, trauma, war

Disciplines

Education | Philosophy

<em>Sunflower Boys</em> (2025) by Sam Wachman

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