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Wild Swans by Jung Chang

Jan18

Wild Swans is the story of three generations of a Chinese family during the rise of Communism, and Mao Tse Tung, and the Cultural Revolution. Jung Chang’s grandmother was a concubine to a Chinese general. She had her feet bound as a child in the traditional Chinese way. But her daughter, Chang’s mother came of age during the conflict between the Nationalist Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek the Communist idealists who followed guerrilla leader Mao Tse-tung. The Changs, mother and father, became dedicated Communists who believed in Chairman Mao and the ideals of the Communist Party without question. True believers, Jung Chang’s parents endured great suffering and hardship for the sake of changing Chinese culture and society into a Marxist Communist paradise. Because she was taught the virtues of communism under Mao and the evils of a capitalist society, Jung Chang came to share their philosophy and to idolize Chairman Mao and his Little Red Book. But eventually, it all came crashing down when Chang’s own family became the persecuted instead of the persecutors during the Cultural Revolution.

“The whole nation slid into doublespeak. Words became divorced from reality, responsibility, and people’s real thoughts. Lies were told with ease because words had lost their meanings—and had ceased to be taken seriously by others.”

The state of China in 1958, from Wild Swans by Jung Chang

It was horrible, yet instructive, to read about an entire society gone mad in twentieth century China and about how slowly and subtly a utopian ideal can become a nightmare, especially with a power-hungry madman in charge. It happened in Russia with Stalin, in Cuba with Castro, in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez and Maduro, and in China with Mao. From 1958 to 1962, Mao’s Great Leap Forward policy led to the deaths of up to 45 million people in a famine that starved people throughout China. The Cultural Revolution that followed in the late 1960’s killed somewhere between 500,000 and two million people. The number of people who didn’t die but suffered great injury and trauma under Mao’s Communist rule is literally incalculable. Jung Chang’s Wild Swans brings the story of this historic horror down to an understandable but terrible story of one family. The book shows how the first generation suffered in the political corruption and prejudice against women that characterized Chinese culture before Communism, how the second generation came to idolize Mao as the embodiment of their dreams of a socialist paradise, and how Jung Chang herself and her siblings, the third generation, paid the price for their own and their parents’ mistaken ideals.

I think everyone should read this book or another book that shows the true story of what can happen in an authoritarian society run by a charismatic but evil ruler. “Mao hoped his movement would make China the pinnacle of the socialist universe and turn him into ‘the man who leads planet Earth into communism.'” Instead, he became the bloodiest dictator the world has yet known. Some other accounts of twentieth century China, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the aftermath of the late twentieth century.

  • Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang. Middle school/high school account of the experiences of one girl, twelve years old when the Cultural Revolution began.
  • China’s Long March by Jean Fritz. Describes the events of the 6,000 mile march undertaken by Mao Zedong and his Communist followers as they retreated before the forces of Chiang Kai-shek.
  • Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao’s China by Lian Xi. Not the best written book, and definitely for adults. The title pretty much sums up this harrowing and true story of a Catholic girl martyr.
  • Sparrow Girl by Sara Pennypacker. This picture book manages to tell about the backward disaster that Mao’s Great Leap Forward precipitated without being unnecessarily traumatic for young readers. Based on real events in China, when Chairman Mao ordered the people to kill all of the sparrows because they were annoying and stealing too many seeds.
  • Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party by Ling Chang Compestine. Nine year old Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the Cultural Revolution. Young adult to adults.
  • Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing by Guo Yue. In Communist China in 1966, eight-year-old Leap Forward learns about freedom while flying kites with his best friend, by trying to get a caged wild bird to sing, and through the music he is learning to play on a bamboo flute. A gentle introduction to this difficult period of history for younger children.

I’ve not read any of the mostly adult books on these lists, but I’m interested in pursuing at least some of them.

The best books on the Cultural Revolution.

Five Must-Read books about the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Best books about the Chinese Cultural Revolution

The Lion’s Paw by Robb White

Jan1

I got this book for Christmas, and it was the last book I read in 2021. Author Robb White wrote for magazines and for television (several episodes of Perry Mason) and the movies, but he is best known for his 24 novels for young people. His books would be classified as “Young Adult” nowadays. Although they are full of adventure and feature somewhat rebellious and independent heroes, by today’s standards they probably wouldn’t be quite edgy enough for the YA market. I have read four of his books now, and I like them very much.

The Lion’s Paw is the tale of three runaway children who sail fifteen year old Ben’s father’s boat through the inland waterways of south Florida, down the Atlantic coast all the way to Captiva Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Ben is running away from a guardian who wants to sell his father’s sailboat because the uncle/guardian believes that Ben’s father, a Navy sailor, is dead. (The book was originally published in 1946, so Ben’s dad is assumed either dead or captured by the Japanese in the Pacific during WWII.) The other two runaways, Penny and her little brother Nick, have escaped from an orphanage. The orphanage doesn’t sound exactly cruel, just sterile, regimented, and uncaring. The story begins with Penny and Nick deciding that that they aren’t likely to be adopted by anyone decent and they just can’t stand life in the orphanage anymore. So they run away and meet up with Ben, and off they go!

The story includes tropical storms, bounty hunters, alligator encounters, near escapes, and the hunt for a seashell called the Lion’s Paw. Ben is convinced that if he can find a Lion’s Paw for his dad’s seashell collection, then his dad will come home. The story itself is beguiling with three plucky, courageous, and determined children facing both the dangers of sailing and surviving on the ocean and the strictures of the adult world which threatens to put an end to their freedom and adventure. There are couple of caveats: the children and an adult in the story use slang to refer to the Japanese (“Japs” and “Japoons”), and at one point the children use some potentially deadly weapons to fight a man who wants to turn them in to the searchers for a reward. Being prepared to use deadly force to counter an intruder would probably be disallowed or at least disapproved of if the book were written and published in the twenty-first century.

Still, I thought it was an exciting story with some brave and admirable characters. Both boys and girls, anyone over the age of twelve or so, would enjoy the tale and be inspired, not to run away from home or go out alligator hunting alone, I hope, but to “do hard things” and face difficulties with courage and ingenuity.

2021 MGF: In a Flash by Donna Jo Napoli

Nov11

I’ve enjoyed Donna Jo Napoli’s books in the past; the author blurb says she’s published more than eighty books for children in her long career. Most of the ones I’ve read have been fairy tale and folk tale retellings (The Wager and Zel) or historical adventure tales (Alligator Bayou and North and Song of the Magdalene). Ms. Napoli, a professor of linguistics and social justice at Swarthmore College, is a good writer. Her books tend to fall toward the upper end of the middle grade fiction age group, maybe even pushing into young adult. In a Flash has a child narrator/protagonist, eight years old at the beginning of the story, but the subject matter and setting, the horrible plight of two Italian sisters surviving on their own in WWII Japan (1940-1946), is harrowing enough to call for some maturity in the reader. I was appalled by the suffering that SImona and her little sister Carolina undergo, and I’m a grown up who knew what to expect when the children, toward the end of the story, end up in the city of Hiroshima.

Because the chapter headings have dates affixed at the beginning and the book is written in first person from Simona’s point of view, I thought at first that the author was trying to pretend that this was SImona’s diary or journal. However, the writing isn’t a child’s writing, and the story is told mostly in present tense. Neither of those choices works for a diary entry. So, I soon realized that the dates were just there to assist the reader in knowing how much time had passed between chapters and where the children were in terms of age and in regard to the war. I found the story fascinating, a little slow-moving at first, but the details about life in Tokyo and in Japan as a whole were vivid and enlightening. The cultural differences between Japanese manners, language, and expectations and Italian cultural mores manifest themselves through the eyes of two little girls who struggle to live as the Japanese do while remembering that they are also Italians.

As I indicated, the book doesn’t shy away from the gruesome details of the starvation, fear, political repression, and sheer misery and trauma of living in wartorn Japan, especially as hated Westerners, Italians who were at first welcomed as friends of the Japanese, then despised as traitors after Italy’s surrender to the Allies. The suffering of the common people of Japan, as well as the choice of some of them to resist the suicidal “patriotism” required of them, are also portrayed in the story.

Because of all the suffering and bombing and starvation and imprisonment, the novel read like a Holocaust story, but with a very different setting. I would recommend In a Flash for mature young people who have been reading about the horrors of World War II as a different perspective and view of the atrocities and difficulties of that time.

2021 MGF: Once Upon a Camel by Kathi Appelt

Nov5

First of all, I have a prejudice in favor of books set in Texas, as long as the Texas culture and history is authentic. Once Upon a Camel, set in my native West Texas, is spot on. Secondly, I absolutely loved Kathi Appelt’s The Underneath and thought it should have won a Newbery Award a few years ago. However, not everyone agreed with me. So you may or may not agree with me that Once Upon a Camel is in the top tier of middle grade fiction published in 2021.

The novel is similar in style to The Underneath, but as I said, it’s set in West Texas, not East. And it features an aging, storytelling camel and a family of kestrels caught in a haboob, a giant, overwhelmingly destructive, dust storm. I loved the storytelling and the way it was woven into the greater story. I loved the kindness and courage exhibited by the animal characters.

The animals are anthropomorphized, but they also stay true to their animal nature for the most part. Zada, the camel, is sometimes loud, nurturing as an honorary auntie, and fond of racing (at least, she was a racer in her youth), and not so fond of horses. The kestrel couple, Pard and Perlita, are fierce and loyal and persistently loving. The baby kestrels, Wims and Beulah, are, well, they are babies, much like human children, quarrelsome yet tender with each other, impulsive, prone to getting into trouble, yet definitely lovable. Even the mountain lion, Pecos de Leon, is only a little bit scary and ominous, and he, too is susceptible to the calming influence of a good story.

Zada’s stories come from her history, and they’re the kind of stories that humans would tell in family groups or in communities. They are family stories, and the book is yet another iteration of the theme that “stories will save the world.” In the author’s note at the end of the book, Ms. Appelt writes:

“In these days of so much anger and division, it’s more important than ever that we take time to share our stories, which at their most basic level tie us to each other in fundamental ways. After all we’ve been gathering around campfires and kitchen tables for thousands of years and doing just that. We are, all of us, story beasts, made to tell stories, built for them.”

p. 321

I highly recommend that you make your acquaintance with Zada, the camel, and that you read her stories and the story of the haboob and how Zada and her friends survived in it. We’ve all been experiencing our own massive “dust storms” through the past couple of years, and perhaps a fictional West Texas camel can help us find our own survival strategies. And even if there are no profound lessons to be learned from Zada, a little humor and a light story never hurt in the midst of a storm.

Poet of the Day: Eve Merriam

Jul19

Whatever you do, find ways to read poetry. Eat it, drink it, enjoy it, and share it.

I find it difficult to sit still when I hear poetry or read it out loud. I feel a tingling feeling all over, particularly in the tips of my fingers and in my toes, and it just seems to go right from my mouth all the way through my body. It’s like a shot of adrenalin or oxygen when I hear rhymes and word play.

~Eve Merriam

Poet Eve Merriam was born July 19, 1916. She is the author of three books in my library. Epaminondas and A Gaggle of Geese are listed in my Picture Book Preschool curriculum book and are favorites of mine to read aloud. I also have Ms. Merriam’s book 12 Ways to Get to 11, a delightful book that combines mathematics and poetry and imagination.

Eve Merriam was well known as a children’s poet. She wrote several collections of poetry for young people, including Blackberry Ink, The Inner City Mother Goose, Funny Time, Higgle Wiggle: Happy Rhymes, and It Doesn’t Always Have to Rhyme, as well as many picture books and nonfiction biographies and nature books for children. However, she also wrote poetry for adults and had her work published in magazines and journals such as Poetry Magazine. The following poem, The Escape, comes from the October 1940 edition of Poetry Magazine.

THE ESCAPE

Suddenly in the subway
not having had time to purchase a paper at the newsstand
and having read all the car-cards
(even the Alka-Seltzer verse ones)
I came face to face with my immortal soul
and since it was three stations until my stop
I grew worried;
until I saw a boy passing through the various trains
distributing leaflets upon constipation and cure;
they were printed on both sides, with fine close print at the bottom,
so there was nothing to worry about really, nothing at all.

What a narrow escape! Nowadays, she would always be accompanied by her cellphone to distract from thoughts too dreadful to contemplate. I do recommend Ms. Merriam’s children’s books and poetry not as a distraction, but rather to encounter whimsy and perhaps even thoughts of immortality.

Picture Book Preschool is a preschool/kindergarten curriculum which consists of a list of picture books to read aloud for each week of the year and a character trait, a memory verse, and activities, all tied to the theme for the week. You can purchase an updated, downloadable version (pdf file) of Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early at Biblioguides.

Admiral Byrd of Antarctica by Michael Gladych

May23

Another Messner biography, published in 1960, Admiral Byrd of Antarctica is a solid, decent read, but not as enthralling or inspiring as other Messner biographies I’ve read. Gladych characterizes Byrd, who explored both the Arctic and the Antarctic, as resourceful, persistent, brave and somewhat driven by a desire to do something important and noteworthy.

The most celebrated event of Byrd’s life came in 1934 on his second Antarctic expedition when he spent five months alone gathering meteorological data in a base station during the antarctic winter. He almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a poorly ventilated stove. He later wrote an account of his experiences when isolated and on his own in his book, Alone. Gladych quotes Byrd saying about his motivation for manning the station by himself:

“There comes a time in every man’s life when he should take stock of himself—sort of check on his navigation, so to speak. . . . You see, it has taken me a long time to get where I am today. And we are all like aircraft on nonstop flights, with time like precious fuel which we cannot replenish. God alone knows how much time-fuel I have left, and I’d like to check my course—make sure that where I am headed is where I should be going. I can do it best alone—out there.”

p.156

I don’t know if that’s an actual quote from Admiral Byrd, or a paraphrase of something he said, or entirely made up by author Gladych. However, while the idea of checking your course by way of an extended retreat is a good one, I think it could have been accomplished with less drama and danger, to Byrd and to his compatriots who eventually had to come to his rescue. But, then, what do I know about polar exploration or the compulsion to adventure and challenge the unknown?

Admiral Byrd was one of the most highly decorated Navy officers in U.S. military history. He also got all kinds of awards and commendations from various non-governmental organizations. But the fact that his wife, Marie, stayed married to him and raised their four children by herself for a good bit of their marriage seems like the best commendation of all. She must have seen something in him. He did name a region in Antartica after his long-suffering wife, Marie Byrd Land.

Some other books about Admiral Byrd and his adventures:

  • Black Whiteness: Admiral Byrd Alone in the Antarctic by Robert Burleigh. Picture book about Byrd’s famous near-death experiment in solitude.
  • Something to Tell the Grandcows by Ellen Spinelli. Picture book. Hoping to have an adventure to impress her grandcows, Emmadine Cow joins Admiral Richard E. Byrd on his 1933 expedition to the South Pole. I have this book in my library.
  • Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure by Richard Evelyn Byrd.
  • Explorer: The Life of Richard E. Byrd by Lisle E. Rose. An adult biography of the explorer published in 2008.
  • Richard E. Byrd: Adventurer to the Poles by Adele de Leeuw. A children’s biography from the series by Garrard Publishers, Discovery biographies.
  • Byrd & Igloo: A Polar Adventure by Samantha Seiple. A narrative account for children of the daring adventures of the legendary polar explorer and aviator and his loveable dog companion draws on letters, diaries, interviews, newspaper clippings, and expedition records.
  • Admiral Richard Byrd: Alone in the Antarctic by Paul Rink. Original title: Conquering Antartica: Admiral Richard E. Byrd.
  • We Were There With Byrd at the South Pole by Charles S. Strong. Juvenile fiction set during Byrd’s first Antarctic expedition.

The Horse Without a Head by Paul Berna

May4

Paul Berna was the pseudonym for French journalist Jean Sabran who wrote children’s books in French during the latter half of the twentieth century. The Horse Without a Head (French title: Le Cheval Sans Tête, 1955) was also published in English with the title A Hundred Million Francs, and it tells the story of a gang of poor working class French children who own one treasure: a headless horse on tricycle wheels that carries them on dangerous and thrilling rides down the narrow streets of Louvigny, a small town in northwest France. The story takes place just after World War II, and there are a few references to leftover bomb craters and deserted warehouses that were abandoned during or after war.

I was reminded as I read of the movie, The Goonies. The ten children in the self-styled “gang” are all under thirteen, street savvy, but also honest and innocent. Their leader, Gaby, “purposely kept the numbers down and never accepted anyone over thirteen, for as he said, ‘When you turn thirteen you get dopey, and you’re lucky if you don’t stay that way for the rest of your life.'” Each child has a distinct personality, but the central figures in the story are Gaby, Fernand, the original owner of the headless horse, and Marion, a somewhat mysterious dog whisperer and amateur vet.

To an adult reader, the book is obviously a translation and of a different era. Some of the dialog is awkwardly phrased in English, and the transitions in the action and logic are sometimes abrupt and difficult to follow. At one point in the story, one of the children brandishes an old rusty revolver and says that although he knows it won’t shoot, “I don’t feel so frightened when I’m holding it.” This bit of business, not at all vital to the plot, would certainly be excised by any editor nowadays. The crooks in the story actually shoot real guns at the children, but of course no one is injured. This is an adventure story, not a treatise on violence and gun safety. The horse rides themselves are quite dangerous, described as going forty or even sixty miles an hour (probably exaggerated) downhill and involving inevitable crashes and spills along the way. The adventures of the children are not meant to be imitated at home, although they very well may lead to some experimentation with wheeled vehicles.

I found the book to be quite a nice escape on a rainy Monday evening, and I would recommend it, if you can get past the Frenchiness and playing with guns. My Scholastic paperback edition from 1964 carries a price of 45 cents on the cover, and I surely got at least 45 cents worth of entertainment from the story. (The price has gone up to about $10.00 for a used paperback, more than twenty for a used hardcover copy.) I thought as I was reading that The Horse Without a Head would make a good movie with some editing and rearranging, and I see that Walt Disney made a movie based on this book; it’s available to rent from Amazon Prime video. Has anyone seen the movie? Or read this little French gem?

Parsifal Rides the Time Wave by Nell Chenault

Dec1

I found a copy of this 1962 boy and his dog story while I was in Tennessee a few weeks back. It’s a sweet tale about Colin who is sent a magical helper, Parsifal, because Colin’s need is great. Colin is in the hospital, and although his body is nearly healed from injuries sustained in a bad accident, he is still grieving the loss of his beloved dog, Lad, who saved Colin from being killed in the accident at the cost of the dog’s life. So, Parsifal the Poddley’s first assignment is to help Colin deal with his grief.

Then, by means of a magical time wave, Colin is able to travel back in time to twelfth century Scotland where he meets his hero Robert the Bruce. The time travel part of this simple book is easy enough to understand, but still quite magical. The story is suitable for young readers, ages five to nine, what we would now called a beginning chapter book, but the introduction to the historical heroes of Scotland is sure to inspire further and more challenging reading. The time period, reading level, and length of the story (85 pages) reminded me of the books by Clyde Robert Bulla or Gertrude Chandler Warner (The Boxcar Children), but the magical and time travel elements put this book in a class of its own.

I read some reviews on Amazon for this book in which the reviewers said that Parsifal Rides the Time Wave was a book they remembered fondly from childhood. It’s perhaps a forerunner of the Magic Treehouse books, but the lessons Colin learns are timeless and gentle in their application. (There is a battle scene in which Robert the Bruce fights and kills his would-be assassins, so if violence in books for young children is a problem for you, you might want to skip this one.) I’m glad I found this one, and I’m happy to add it to my library.

Oh, it looks as if there’s another book about Parsifal the Poddley and time travel that came before this one, just called Parsifal the Poddley. Unfortunately this first book about Parsifal seems to be a unicorn, priced at over $100 on used book sites that I checked. If you come across a copy at thrift store prices, I would grab it. From the review at Kirkus Reviews:

Eight-year-old Christopher of Butterfield, Vermont, is badly in need of a Poddley, the special creature who comes to serve lonely little boys. And Parsifal the Poddley, on his first mission shows himself to be ideally suited for Christopher. Not only does he educate him to be more thoughtful, but he takes Christopher back in time to 1659 and introduces him to Vermont in its pioneer period. Christopher participates in a conflict between the Indians and settlers and arrives home just in time to find a neighbor and friend in the person of a new little boy whose family has just moved next door.

The Peppermint Pig by Nina Bawden

Sep7

Old granny Greengrass had her finger chopped off in the butcher’s when she was buying half a leg of lamb.

The opening sentence of this British children’s novel, published in 1975, should be a warning to the squeamish or the tender-hearted: This is not the book for you. I looked at the reviews on Goodreads, and there are at least two polar opposite verdicts. Either the reviewer finds the story to be “sweet and touching, poignant and heart-breaking” or “traumatic, brutal, and cruel.” Well, actually some readers found all of those adjectives applicable and enjoyed the contrast.

The story is told in third person from the point of view of Poll, the youngest of four children in a middle class family in England. When Poll’s father leaves his family behind to go off to America to make his fortune (because of an unfortunate misunderstanding with his employer), Poll, her mother, and her siblings are left without funds and go to live with Mother’s sisters, Aunt Harriet and Aunt Sarah. Mother comes home one day with a tiny runt of a pig, called a “peppermint pig”, that the family adopt as a pet.

Lily said, “You can’t keep a pig indoors, Mother!

“Oh, we had all sorts of animals in the house when I was young,” Mother said. “Jackdaws, hedgehogs, newly hatched chicks. I remember times you couldn’t get near our fire.”

“But not pigs,” Lily said.

“I can’t see why not. You’d keep a dog, and a pig has more brains than a dog, let me tell you. If you mean pigs are dirty, that’s just a matter of giving a pig a bad name, to my mind. Why, our Johnnie was housebroken in a matter of days, and with a good deal less trouble than you gave me, my girl!”

As it turns out, Lily was right, and Mother was wrong. It’s not a good idea to keep a pig for a pet, especially if the family who owns the pig is poor and will eventually . . . well, no spoilers. However, I saw where this story was going long before the “cruel” and “traumatic” ending. And I was fascinated by the tone of the story which reveals the secret lives of children, lives of thought and action that can be very dark indeed. I think it would be comforting to some children to read that other children have violent thoughts and tell lies and become quite angry and still survive. Other children might find it quite horrifying.

But, I’m ambivalent about keeping this book in my library. I think some parents would be shocked by the language and the actions of both children and adults, while I just thought the story was realistic about the sin that overtakes us all and about the brokenness that is a part of our world. Nine year old Poll is a passionate child with ideas and questions and feelings that are overwhelming at times for such a small person. And some of the ideas and events and emotions in this book might be a bit too much for a nine or ten year old who is reading it. Some examples (and you can decide for yourself):

‘Poll said, ‘What do you mean about biting off puppies’ tails?’
‘That’s what the groom at the Manor House used to do. My mother was cook there, you know. I’ve seen that groom pick up a new litter one after the other, bite off the tail at the joint and spit it out, quick as a flash. The kindest way, he always said, no fuss and tarradiddle, and barely a squeak from the pup.’

‘She hit him in the stomach, he grunted and fell and she fell on top of him. He tried to get up but she grabbed his hair with both hands and thumped his head up and down.
She couldn’t move but Noah’s laughing face was above her so she spat into it as hard as she could and said, ‘Damn you, you rotten bug, damn and blast you to hell…’

‘She made a best friend called Annie Dowsett who was older than she was and who told her how babies were born. ‘The butcher comes and cuts you up the stomach with his carving knife,’ Annie said.’ 

Theo was clever but he wasn’t sensible the way ordinary people were. He saw things differently and this set him apart. Poll thought, Theo will always be lonely, and it made her proud and sad to know this, and very responsible.

It’s a stark and realistic picture of the inner life and growth of a child during one hard year of near-poverty and perceived abandonment. Tender-hearted animal lovers and idealizers of children should beware.

Village of Scoundrels by Margi Preus

Sep1

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a commune in the Haute-Loiredepartment in south-central France. Residents have been primarily Huguenot or Protestant since the 17th century. During World War II these Huguenot residents made the commune a haven for Jews fleeing from the Nazis. They hid them both within the town and countryside, and helped them flee to neutral Switzerland. In 1990 the town was one of two collectively honored as the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Israel for saving Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe.

~Wikipedia

Village of Scoundrels is a fictional depiction of the activities of the villagers of Le Chambon during World War 2, especially the teens and children who were either refugees or resistors or both. The book doesn’t really have a clearly defined protagonist, but some of the heroes and villains in the books are listed in the opening pages, and these characters are mostly based on the lives and actions of real, living people:

  • Celeste is a high school student who becomes a courier for the Resistance.
  • Jean-Paul is a Jewish teen who wants to become a doctor, but who find that his talent for forgery is in demand.
  • Jules the Scoundrel is a ten year old goatherd who plays dangerous games with the French policeman who is collaborating with the Nazis to uncover the secrets of Le Chambon.
  • Henni and Max are German Jews, boyfriend and girlfriend, who take refuge in Le Chambon.
  • Philippe, a high school student from Normandy, hides refugees and smuggles them to Switzerland.

This book is gaining lots of accolades this year, and indeed the subject matter cries out for a good novelization or narrative nonfiction telling (maybe there is a good nonfiction book about this WWII event?). However, the mix of fiction and nonfiction in this one was not that well done. It should have either been more fictionalized to make the story flow with a clear protagonist and plot or just straight nonfiction with chapters telling the stories of each of the various children and young adults who were active in the French Resistance in Le Chambon. I found it interesting, but hard to follow.

The last part of the novel, where the story coalesces around the French policeman, Perdant, and Jules the Soundrel, is pure fiction and better reading than the rest of the book. Then, the afterword attempts to help the reader sort fact from fiction, but I found it just as confusing as the preceding chapters. Again, can anyone recommend a well written nonfiction book on this subject? Preus provides a bibliography of twenty or more titles at the end of the book, but which one is the best?