Micro review 4 (2024)

 

Safiyyah's War by Hiba Noor Khan (Andersen Press)

I read this book back last summer and really enjoyed reading it. It is  another book set in WW2 but this one had a different spin as while it was set in Paris during the Occupation it focuses on the resistance work undertaken by the Islamic community of the city and the help they provided to Jews trying to escape.

This is a book for children/young teenagers but it still packs one heck of a punch, and even with all the books I've read about WW2/Resistance/Occupation it brought a completely new dimension to this period of history.

At a time when tensions in the Middle East are once more in the news this book is a good reminder that cooperation between faiths is possible.

I'm really pleased that this book has been Shortlisted for this year's YOTO Carnegie Medal and longlisted for the Jhalak Children's and Young Adults Prize - it really deserves to reach a wide audience (and not just children).

Micro Review 50 (Holocaust Memorial Day)

 

Maman, What Are We Called Now? by Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar, trans. Francine Yorke (Persephone Books)

This volume from Persephone Press has been sitting on my shelf for a while but it has been worth the wait.

The titles of the book comes from the author's daughter as the family were French Jewish and in hiding during WW2, although unlike so many they were hiding more or less in plain sight and together for a lot of the war. The first part of the book covers the last 5 weeks of the German occupation of France and comes in the form of Mesnil-Amar's diary from these weeks - starting when her husband is arrested and put on the last transport from France to the East, and the Concentration/Death camps.

The excitement (and fear) caused by the approach of the Allied Armies on Paris is heightened by fear for Andre and this is all pored out into the diary entries, along with some reflection on the past decade. It was very interesting to get an eye witness account from inside Paris as the German's left, and also a reminder that whatever the victors would like you to believe not everyone suffered under the occupation and that although there were plenty of brave people not everyone was in the Resistance...

The diary is a breathless read, but for me the book becomes even more interesting in the final part where Mesnil-Amar's reflections on what came next for the displaced Jews of Europe, and the children who had been successfully hidden but now had no surviving family. Her meditations on how deluded French Jews had become before 1940 are also fascinating. 

I've read many books set in WW2, and many books with the Shoah as the main theme, but I think this is an excellent addition to my personal canon. I don't think I've read a book, by a survivor, that covers the before, during, and after in such a clear sighted way.

Micro Review 5

One More Croissant for the Road by Felicity Cloake

Despite having over flowing bookshelves and a Kindle full of unread books I still found myself with nothing to read a few weeks ago and so started to browse the Library ebook shelves again. I think that the impossibility of travel and the boredom that is meal planning drew me to this book.

Cloake sets off by bike to spend a few weeks cycling around France trying the various local specialties of the regions and also trying to find the best croissant in France.

I don't hugely enjoy cycling, and there are certain foods even I'd never try (andouille sausage I'm looking at you here) but Cloake's enthusiasm is infectious and I now have a list of places as long as my arm that I'd like to visit.

I also liked that often Cloake gets fed up with the weather, camping and cycling and so checks into hotels and uses trains to get from place to place. This made 90% of her trip sound fun rather than a punishment. For me this was ideal lockdown escapism and encouraged me to open some of my recipe books and try some new dishes.

Talking Books: These Dividing Walls

These Dividing Walls by Fran Cooper

This is a book about one recent summer in Paris, told from the view point of the inhabitants of one traditional building which has been split into several apartments. There are all walks of life living in the building and much of the story was told from the viewpoint of the young British visitor to the city.

Each of the building's inhabitants has their own story but they all become interconnected as wider political events within France rise to the surface and boil over with the weather.

This book felt very familiar in some ways, the trope of using one building to tell a story for instance, and also the tourist in a strange city but it was so much more than this and it became a real page turner - was the young mother going mad? Why was the homeless man watching the building? It was the main plot of how racism takes root and grows which really grabbed me by the throat and turned the book into a real page turner.

While the events in this book are fictional they are all too real and I think that, coupled with the well written descriptions of Paris during a heatwave make this book a really vivid read, in fact I was surprised to find that it wasn't a French book translated into English!

(This book was provided as a proof by Net Galley but it is now published)