Customer Reviews

Touch Wood: A Girlhood in Occupied France

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I cannot believe that this book is out of print! What a travesty.

It's been years since I read "Touch Wood," but the memory of Roth-Hano's vivid descriptions is still clear in my mind.

The fact that the book is a true story, and one that takes place in an extremely dangerous time for the protagonist add to the books intensity. Even without these factors, though, the book would still be well worth reading for Roth-Hano's lovely detailed prose and dead-on depictions of family relationships. The bond between Renee and her sisters -- who she is with constantly during hiding -- is especially well-illustrated.

If you can get ahold of a copy of "Touch Wood," I strongly recommend that you do so.

Renee and her family flee their home in Alsace to take up residence in Paris as the Nazi's invade France. As the Nazi's tighten their grip on the city, Renee and her family are forced to wear yellow Stars of David, announcing that they are Jewish. When close friends are picked up by the police, the family decides that Paris is no longer safe for the children. Renee and her two sisters are sent to a home managed by Catholic nuns, where they hide that they are Jewish. Rennee's feelings of jealous and anger are easy to understand and many children will relate to her.

Yes, this book has an un-orginal theme: Jewish people surviving during WW2. But, the fact that it is a true story, and the way it's told, makes for compelling reading.

I am not very impressed by this book about a Jewish girl in France during the Occupation. Renee lives through moving from their family home in Alsace to an apartment in Paris to a convent in Brittany, she lives through discrimination and through a lack of food, illness, but ultimately I found her privations and tribulations uninvolving.
I'll keep it in my classroom library with other Holocaust books, because clearly there are others for whom it clicked, but I won't recommend it to my students.