Waiting For The Storks

Waiting for the Storks by Katrina Nannestad is a children’s historical novel set during the Second World War, when Himmler’s Lebensborn Program is taking Polish children from their families. Eight-year-old Zofia Ulinski is kidnapped because she has blonde hair and blue eyes, then renamed and raised as a “good and happy German girl”. Adopted into a wealthy, loving German household, Zofia finds it safer to bury her memories of Poland, her language and her past. But when a Polish boy arrives, the life she has built begins to fracture, and the questions she has tried not to ask return with force. It’s a story about identity, belonging, and what it means to survive when the choices were never yours.

Useful additional information Author: Katrina Nannestad

Awards: CBCA Notable Younger Readers 2023; Longlisted Book Links Award for Children’s Historical Fiction 2023; Winner Queensland Literary Awards 2023 (Children’s Book Award)