“ ‘Noch’ ved’m,’ I whisper to myself as I crouch in the rubble of our apartment building and watch the searchlights scraping the night, looking for those tiny planes, the U-2 trainers.  Tatyana and I had both learned to fly these light biplanes, their four wings made of wood and canvas.  Open cockpit.  No parachutes.  In these fragile machines the women of the 588^th Regiment harass the German Sixth Army.  The engines purr so softly that the Germans call them ‘sewing machines.’  But like small, sharp-beaked predatory birds, they will keep up the harassment until the dawn.”  Valya pg. 1 Nitch Witches pby Kathryn Lasky
 
Valya’s father had been head of the flight training program at an airbase near Stalingrad¹, and had taught his daughters to fly by the time they were twelve years old.  Valya had loved learning to fly and playing make believe with her sister, but four years later, trapped on the eastern front of World War II, life is very different.  Her sister, eighteen year old Tatyana, has joined the fight, her father is missing, or possibly dead, her babushka² was killed when their apartment building was bombed and with the Germans continuing their relentless assault on Stalingrad, things only get worse. 
 
When a German sniper kills her mother, the only thing for Valya to do is flee, and she wants nothing more than to join her sister and fly with the 588^th Regiment, the Night Witches.  Getting out of Stalingrad proves to be very difficult though, there are Germans soldiers everywhere and the only safe way out, isn’t really that safe at all.  Valya soon finds herself in Trench 301 with other kids, blowing up German tanks with machine guns.  After a few weeks, former classmate Yuri Vaznov, who has become a rather famous sniper, helps her out of the city and together they travel to the Night Witches’ secret airfield.
 
Valya is excited to be reunited with her sister and even more excited to fly, but it’s war, and things aren’t that easy.  Valya is first assigned to work as a mechanic at the airfield, but is quickly promoted to navigator, however she still longs to be a pilot.  When her chance finally comes, it’s only because another pilot has lost her life.  Now that Valya is a Night Witch herself, can she survive the dangerous missions ahead?  Read Night Witches by Kathryn Lasky to find out.