Yellow Boots

Wendy Berner is a Calgary-based writer, researcher, storyteller, and
educator.

Yellow Boots recounts the life of Lilli, a young Ukrainian woman growing
up in an immigrant farming community on the Manitoba Prairies in the
1930s. From an early age, hers is a life of almost unbearable oppression
and gruesome toil that somehow never break her spirit.

This vibrant story opens with a powerful scene: a critically ill child
is driven across the Prairies to her parents’ home, where she is
expected to die. The scene grabs and intrigues, quickly drawing the
reader into the physical, emotional, and human landscape of this story.
Never accepted by her parents, and treated more as a servant than as a
child, Lilli draws courage and delight from the traditions of her people
(the book is peppered with the lore, history, and folkways of Bukovynian
peasant life), from the nature around her, and from the power of music.

Lysenko’s characters are uniformly believable and fully developed,
and her book bursts with rich imagery. It is a fascinating view of
Canadian Ukrainian Prairie culture and a compelling tale of a young
woman who has the courage of her convictions as she struggles with life
both in the city and on the farm—alone.

The author (1910–1975), a writer and social activist who grew up in
the “multi-ethnic working-class neighborhood of Winnipeg,” was one
of the first Ukrainian-Canadian women to receive a university degree.
First published in 1954, Yellow Boots was reissued in 1992 with an
introduction by Alexandra Kyrvoruchka. It is a book to be savored.