The Darkest Evening by William Durbin, ISBN 0-439-37307-7, Orchard Books/Scholastic Inc., 2004, 240 pp.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Characters: The 13 year old protagonist Jake Maki and his Finnish-American family (father Arvid, mother Annikki, older brother Peter, and younger sister Maija) live in a small mining community in northern Minnesota in 1934. Jake is a thoroughly American teenage boy who loves to play baseball and who idolizes his favorite baseball player Carl Hubbell (from whom Jake has adopted the nickname “Hub”).
Plot: Jake gets along well with everyone in his family, but tensions develop in the Maki household when his father Arvid decides that the family must move away from their home in Minnesota; Arvid has gotten caught up in an emigration fervor sweeping through Virginia, Minnesota, a fervor incited by Soviet socialists visiting the economically depressed community and encouraging Finnish-Americans to leave America and move to Karelia in the Soviet Union. Arvid decides to move his family to the promise of a workers’ paradise, although Jake—more than anyone else in the family—is most reluctant to give up everything with which he has been so comfortable and happy in the United States. Nevertheless, the Maki family leaves Minnesota and arrives in 1935 at their new home in Lönnrot, Karelia, a dismal logging town near the Arctic Circle. Arvid’s bold dream of new utopian world soon becomes a disappointment. The family is forced to live in barracks-style quarters, without adequate furniture and with inadequate, bug-infested straw mattresses, without electricity and running water, and even without decent or sufficient food. As time goes on, even after the still optimistic and idealistic Arvid moves his family to the Karelian regional capital, Petrozavodsk, a more promising town with the promise of a different government-assigned job in a ski manufacturing factory, conditions nevertheless continue to deteriorate and hardships worsen, and Jake is more openly convinced that the family has made a terrible mistake. And though Arvid along with Annikki, Peter, and Maija try to remain confident about their prospects for a better future, bitter reality and horrifying events force everyone into finally acknowledging the futility of their circumstances: Peter is inexplicably and suddenly arrested and taken away by the NKVD secret police; then, a short time later, Arvid is also arrested and taken away from the family. Now, only Jake, his mother, and his sister remain in gloomy Petrozavodsk, and together the three remaining Makis realize that they can no longer continue living in their horrible dystopia. With the covert help of a couple of brave friends, the three Makis, without knowing but remaining hopeful about the plight of both Arvid and Peter, but now with Jake as the head of the family, embark on a long, harrowing cross-country ski trip. Traveling mostly during the frigid darkness of the long winter nights for more than a week and facing many life-threatening dangers, Jake, his mother, and his sister ultimately escape to safety and freedom more than a hundred miles away in Finland.
Comments: Durbin’s historical novel is an adroitly crafted story filled with fine characterizations, evocative imagery, interesting settings, well-developed themes, and—perhaps most significantly—plenty of good dialogue, suspense, and excitement (i.e., those three elements that most effectively draw young readers into a text). Written for ages 10-14 (grades 5-9), but also succeeding as an engaging and effective tale that would be acceptable to even the most reluctant high school readers, The Darkest Evening—an historical fiction based on actual events as outlined in the author’s “Historical Note” afterword—will present teachers and students with excellent opportunities for discussions of different governments and political systems (especially American democracy and Soviet socialism); the problems facing immigrants and emigrants in a variety of settings and circumstances; and important moments in 20th century European and American history (i.e., the effects of the American depression, the rise and fall of communism in Russia and eastern Europe, and America’s flirtations with and McCarthy-era aversions to socialism.).
Touchy Areas: While some contemporary novels for middle and high school students and young adults sometimes include touchy areas (strong language, graphic violence, sexual situations, sensitive themes, or inappropriate content), readers will not encounter any such problem areas in Durbin’s tastefully written story of family loyalties and political terror.
Related Titles: Other titles dealing with children’s and families’ immigration and emigration challenges include William Durbin’s The Journal of Otto Peltonen: A Finnish Immigrant, Ann Rinaldi’s The Journal of Jasper Jonathan Pierce: A Pilgrim Boy, Barry Denenberg’s The Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13559 Mirror Lake Internment Camp, and the many books from the My Name is America series. Combining The Darkest Evening with a study of historical, political documents would also be quite productive; and, of course, reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm as either prologue or follow-up to Durbin’s book is certain to provoke plenty of discussion about politics, governments, and people’s rights and responsibilities.
Reviewed by Tim Davis, Department English and Foreign Languages, University of West Florida