A Campbell River author has added another award to her resume. Shari Green was awarded the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People at a gala event in Toronto on Oct. 27 for her novel, Song of Freedom, Song of Dreams. “Green’s gripping novel in verse explores the familial, personal, and political complexities of living in late 1980s communist East Germany,” the jury wrote. Song of Freedom, Song of Dreams was published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, and was also a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize. The novel is centered around a 16-year-old pianist living in Leipzig, who tries to pursue her dreams during the months of protest preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall. The book begins in August 1989, and explores the pianist’s (Helena) hopes and dreams of becoming a conductor, disrupted by politics, such as the East Germany government’s ban on music such as Italian operas, Russian folk songs, and music from the United States, and even the Beatles. Her father is also a dreamer, inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, and organizes protests when he is not teaching his university students to think critically about the world they live in. “When I was writing this book,” Green said during her acceptance speech,” I was struck by how often the events and themes of the time were so similar to what I was seeing in the news currently. And it reaffirmed for me the importance of listening to and sharing the stories of history.” In an interview with the Campbell River Mirror last October, Green said the book follows Helena as she is drawn into the protest movement known as the Peaceful Revolution, also known as Die Wende (“the turning point”) in Germany. The Peaceful Revolution began with a series of protests called the Monday demonstrations, which started in Leipzig on Sept. 4, 1989, outside St. Nicholas Church. Despite the Stasi’s attempts to crush the movement, the rest of the country soon followed suit.
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