Sarah's Key: Review

Twice a year, the school library holds a book fair sponsored by Scholastic, and I enjoy browsing the titles to find new selections to check out from the local library.  I made a list of over 20 books to read for this summer, and I'm about half way through the list.  A lot of the books are young adult titles because I like to know what my students are reading, and usually, they are light and fun and a nice distraction from real life.  Most of the books from this summer's list haven't been worth mentioning, but Sarah's Key is.

I enjoy learning more and more about the Holocaust, and this book was certainly an eye opener.  It's fiction, but the role that the French police played in arresting, abusing, and shipping off Jews to various concentration camps is very real.  The author, Tatiana de Rosnay grew up in France and yet she never learned about the role that the French played in harming their own citizens under threat from the Nazis.  It took a lot of courage for her to be honest about the history of her country. 

Sarah is ten when the French police come to arrest her family and send them off to concentration camps.  Sarah thinks that she will return home within a couple of hours, and she locks her brother in their secret cupboard before leaving.  You can imagine the rest. 

Fast forward 60 years to the anniversary of the French Jewish roundup to meet journalist Julia, an American living in France.  Her French husband's family is hiding all kinds of secrets, and some are tied to ten year old Sarah.  Julia works for weeks to uncover what happened to Sarah's family.

The book shouldn't have made an appearance at a middle school book fair, but it is fabulous for adults.  The themes are mature though not unbearable.  I appreciate the raw honesty of a nation's ugly past and the history that I learned through the veil of fiction writing. 

A movie was filmed nearly 2 years ago in France based on the novel.  Last week, it finally came out in limited release across America.  I hope to see it someday, but I'm content with the book for now.