Lively, colorful characters and vivid details about this brutal period of modern Soviet history make Shurik a poignant and educational book for all ages. This is the poignant story of a beautiful young Russian nurse and a homeless orphan boy during the three-year siege of Leningrad in World War II. Among the many people trapped in Leningrad by the advancing German Armies were a teenage actress named Kyra and an orphan boy called Shuik. Kyra, her brilliant stage career interrupted by the war, was serving as a military nurse when she found a small orphaned boy and saved him from a certain death by starvation after his family home was bombed. The story revolves around the efforts of these two, the small boy and the young nurse, to survive in the face of great hardships of starvation and despair during the longest siege in modern history. How the young nurse braves the bitter weather, privation and the dangers of the front lines to carry her duties to the wounded and how Shurik becomes a hero to a Leningrad military hospital as a moving, adventurous and human story based upon the author won experiences.