The Bread of That Winter

And the first-grader Lena, who stayed with her family in besieged Leningrad, learns from her own experience what "real war looks like": what an air raid is and how to extinguish an "incendiary bomb", what true hunger feels like, and that, it turns out, pancakes can be made from coffee grounds, and jelly can be made from carpentry glue. "The Bread of That Winter" by Ella Fonyakova is both a snapshot of the time and, to a large extent, an autobiographical story about the blockade days, as well as a poignant tale of an ordinary girl, her family, and all Leningraders who did not leave the besieged city.
The illustrations for the book were created by Lyudmila Pipchenko - an artist who managed to convey the mood of the story with astonishing accuracy and allow readers to see one of the blockade winters through their own eyes.