{"id":539,"date":"2008-10-29T11:26:30","date_gmt":"2008-10-29T15:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/?p=539"},"modified":"2008-10-29T11:26:30","modified_gmt":"2008-10-29T15:26:30","slug":"sarahs-key-by-tatiana-de-rosnay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/?p=539","title":{"rendered":"Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Martin’s Press sent me a copy of this book as part of their Reading Group Gold<\/a> program.\u00c2\u00a0 I first heard about it a month or so ago and wondered how I could not have heard of it before now.\u00c2\u00a0 Movie rights have been sold and it’s been translated into other languages.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently I’ve been writing or watching movies instead of checking on newly released books.\u00c2\u00a0 It is one of the best books I’ve read this year and I’m going to be buying copies for my reading friends.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the back cover:<\/p>\n

PARIS, JULY 1942:<\/strong> Sarah, a ten-year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night.\u00c2\u00a0 Desperate to\u00c2\u00a0protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard – their secret hiding place – and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.<\/p>\n

SIXTY YEARS LATER: <\/strong>Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the roundup.\u00c2\u00a0 In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her\u00c2\u00a0to Sarah, and to questions about her own romantic future.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The round-up occurred on July 16th by the French police under Gestapo orders.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the orders were carried out by their countrymen instead of German soldiers it was easy from some to believe they were being arrested for a short time.\u00c2\u00a0 The police had a list of\u00c2\u00a0thousands to be arrested.\u00c2\u00a0 Upon finding the people on the list the police put them on public transportation buses which took the passengers to the V\u00c3\u00a9lodrome d’Hiver, an arena that was used for bike races and other events.\u00c2\u00a0 The Vel’ d’Hiv’ (the common name for the stadium)\u00c2\u00a0was a holding place until the orders came to transport the Jews to Auschwitz.\u00c2\u00a0 The French used several camps to hold\u00c2\u00a0everyone before their final train ride.\u00c2\u00a0 One camp was for the adults without children and another camp in the countryside is where the families were sent.\u00c2\u00a0 Once there, the children were torn from their families and kept in an area by themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 Adults were to be sent first.\u00c2\u00a0 This round-up is a little known piece of French history.\u00c2\u00a0 When the 60th anniversary arrived in 2002 the French government held a ceremony to commemorate their role in the round-up and apologize to the survivors.<\/p>\n

De Rosnay weaves this information into the storyline of the present day.\u00c2\u00a0 She alternates the tales of Sarah and Julia in the chapters.\u00c2\u00a0 The reader learns more about the Vel’ d’Hiv’ event as Julia learns it.\u00c2\u00a0 As her investigation continues, Julia’s relationship with her French husband becomes more strained.\u00c2\u00a0 De Rosnay sets obstacles in Julia’s path but the story of Sarah inspires Julia to persevere.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the tasks of\u00c2\u00a0a historical fiction author is to place the reader in the middle of the action while caring about the characters.\u00c2\u00a0 It is too easy to let the historical setting overshadow the characters and de Rosnay does a wonderful job at her task in balancing the two.<\/p>\n

De Rosnay has written several books but this is the first one written in English.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0She lives in France\u00c2\u00a0and will be doing a book tour in the United States with the Jewish Book Council\u00c2\u00a0this November.\u00c2\u00a0 To see if she’ll be in your town, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St. Martin’s Press sent me a copy of this book as part of their Reading Group Gold program.\u00c2\u00a0 I first heard about it a month or so ago and wondered how I could not have heard of it before now.\u00c2\u00a0 Movie rights have been sold and it’s been translated into other languages.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently I’ve been… Continue reading Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[70,71],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-sarahs-key","tag-tatiana-de-rosnay","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}