about the book
For Jews, Paris in the 1940s is a dangerous place. The Nazi’s have occupied the city, and every day they place more and more restrictions on the Jewish people living there. Finally, one young Jewish girl’s father has had enough and joins the French Army, while the girl’s mother joins the French Resistance.
This young girl is Odette. With both parents putting their lives in danger and unable to take care of her, Odette is sent to the countryside to live in hiding as a Catholic. The village where she lives is indeed safer, but it is not totally devoid of anti-Semitism. Odette avoids any kind of confrontation, hiding not only from the Nazis but also from her Jewish heritage. She learns to pray, to make the sign of the cross, and to say all the right things in church.
But is staying safe really worth it if Odette loses and forgets her own identity?
Through narrative poetry Odette relates her life over the course of World War II and all the hardships she faced. This story is based off the true life story of Odette Meyers, who was only eight at the time the Nazi’s invaded France.
about the author
Maryann MacDonald is a lot like the character Angela in her children’s book The Costume Copycat. Angela is always jealous of her seemingly perfect older sister, Bernadette; for Maryann it was the same way with her older sister, Joan.
She and Joan were only two among eight children in the family, though, so there were plenty of other jealousies to go around! Maryann and her siblings grew up playing kickball and “Clue,” reading stories, and hearing tales by their Irish grandmother. Their father would read aloud Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which awoke a wanderlust in Maryann that would not be fulfilled for many years.
Everyone in the family worked and never really thought about traveling to see the world. Maryann loved working in an automobile shop in the summers, and even more so when the money she earned allowed her to go to the University of Michigan. However, for her 21st birthday she decided to go to London. At last the love of travel had found its place in her!
Maryann met her husband while traveling. They got married, then had two daughters, one born in France and the other in England. They have lived in Europe, northern Africa, and even in the Middle East. Today Maryann and her family live in New York City, where she still sometimes gets a little bit jealous…
Source:
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