Customer Reviews

The Twelve Little Cakes

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The first thing we learn about Dominika Dery is that she appeared to her mother in a dream before she was born. It was in a garden and she came running through the trees to say hello. As soon as her mother, Jana, began trying to have a baby, the girl disappeared from her dreams. When finally Jana became pregnant, she and her husband Jarda were joyful. Although they did not have a lot of money for a second child, Dominika was welcomed and had a loving childhood.

Growing up in Prague in the 1970s and early 1980s, Dominika did not know her grandparents because, as members of the Party elite, they disowned her mother. She tried multiple times to meet her grandmother and grandfather, and invited them to ballet performances that she was in, but to no avail. Instead, she forged relationships with elderly members of the community.

While the family was not wealthy, Dominika enjoyed many treats in life and spending time with her parents. After seeing "Swan Lake" with her family, she was determined to become a ballerina, even though she was young and small. Throughout the reading of this memoir, you learn that Dominika was not an average little girl, and that when she set her mind to do something, she did it.

Dominika's father worked as a taxi driver because his political beliefs made it almost impossible to get another job. As a result, many of the children who were Dominika's age were not allowed to play with her. She spent hours with the older women in the neighborhood, who told her stories of their youth and baked cakes for her.

Dominika dealt with much disappointment before even completing her first decade of life. She became a dedicated and talented ballerina, but she was so small and young that it was hard to obtain roles in performances. When she did receive them, the costumes were too large or she would run into orchestra conductors who did not appreciate it when little girls sang along to the music. She began going to church and had quite a scare when she learned that, because she had taken communion at church without having been baptized, she must be baptized or she would be sent to hell.

The small town of Cernosice was full of gossips, and Dominika's parents were forever warning her not to say anything, because no one could be sure whether a neighbor was an informant or not. In one of her childhood memories captured here, she shares a time when her father outsmarted three informants by putting them to work in his backyard.

Our last glimpse into Prague's communist era is when Dominika and her parents, not accompanied by her sister, traveled to Poland for a vacation. Through hardships and disappointments, Dominika still managed to make friends, keep smiling, and put her mother and father into good spirits once again.

Dominika's good nature puts readers in good moods as well. THE TWELVE LITTLE CAKES is a touching, sweet story, and it will remind you of your childhood days, when you were as loved as you wanted to be, and anything was possible.

--- Reviewed by Hannah Gómez (gingermulatta@kiwibox.com)

I would call this a gentle book harking back to childhood with loving parents who are dissidents of a strange political system named Communisim in an Eastern European country named Czechoslovakia from 1974 to about 1985. You discover that Communisim is a disastrous joke and wonder how it lasted as long as it did...and does in a few countries still. The author does a masterful job of writing about her life as it was from age 5 to 10 and conveys to the reader the innocence and excitement and concern of what is important to a young child. The big sister is in her story who adds to her troubles at times and the fact that her father is fired from many many jobs due to his resistance of the political regime, yet is able to always be optimistic and find other ways to get work has an important part also. This is a feel good book and highly recommended.

This is an autobiographical novel that covers the author's childhood in a village outside of Prague, in what was then Czechoslovakia, in the late seventies and early eighties. The country was a Soviet bloc state, a fact which ruled over most aspects of life, and the author makes this very clear. She also makes clear her feelings about communism and the Soviet occupation, but what makes this a good read is that she also explains why. She uses facts and her own (many) personal experiences, and those of her parents, who rebelled against communism.

The author/narrator Dominika, as a little girl, is fun to read. She is extroverted, confident, and loves to talk loudly and in exclamations. Yet she is not perfect, and does not fully understand the political and economic situation around her. The author does not tell her story only from a little girl's eyes, but fills in with information that she had learned or realized later. This is both from a child's point of view and an older, informed, and quite intelligent point of view.

This was an easy read, as I finished it in half the time I normally take to read a book this size. The book covers her various adventures and acquaintances: an old Austrian caretaker, three kind old women who bake cakes, the neighbor children who are not allowed to play with the dissidents' daughter, ballet school and performances, Communist spies and informants who kept an eye on her parents and who her father played tricks on, Dominika's mother's parents (who have disowned her despite the father's reluctance), the family dog famous from Czech movies, the beautiful sister, the Easter when Dominika disguised herself as a boy so she could collect eggs from the women (until the other boys then stole her basket as well), and a somewhat stressful vacation in Poland.

Indeed, there are many other stories in this novel, complete with references to Czech culture and holidays. There are so many events that it's never a problem if I get to one that's rather boring -- it is soon over and another story is begun.

The Czech names weren't too hard to keep up with: the characters are introduced very gradually. Only, I found it maybe a little annoying that some characters had English words for last names (such as "German" or "Backyard") and I get the impression that she is translating Czech words into English, and leaves untranslated the names that aren't words. I would much prefer to see the original names.

The story ends around 1985, when Gorbachev came into power and Dominika's father was (correctly) hopeful that the Soviet occupation and Iron Curtain days would be over soon. I was a little disappointed because I wished to see what happened with the family when their hopes finally came true. Still, Dominika ends the story on the note that even if they continued to live under Communism, they would survive because they had each other.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in life in Soviet satellite countries (it didn't vary too greatly from country to country), or simply interested in a book filled with rich and exciting detail on a life that is both ordinary and unusual (especially to people from the West).

Reading this book was like going home. I also grew up in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and Dominika's (I feel like I know her so I will be on ty with her!) memoir took me back to a very happy, yet also sad time. Her descriptions of the neighbors, the sights of Prague, even her dog (yes, he was so famous in the Czech Republic although he's long gone you can see him a lot on old movies on tv there!) made me miss my country so much.

After taking off my "skeptical of vivid early-childhood memories" hat and cutting the Czechoslovakian-born author a bit of "English as a second language" slack for her sometimes awkward grammar, I enjoyed The Twelve Little Cakes very much. The anecdotes of Dominika Dery's early life as a precocious, sometimes naive girl growing up during the mid-seventies to mid-eighties in Cernosice, Czechoslovakia are refreshingly told. Initially, the family lives in a house renovated into a triplex, but after they prevent Dominika's maternal grandmother from confiscating their home through the courts (in an attempt to disinherit Dominika's mom) remodeling of the house, and its associated stories, begins. The author's mother, Jana, "the granddaughter of a founding member of the prewar Communist Party," was a writer (of books) at the State Economic Institute which "her Communist bosses took credit for." Her father, Jarda, "bewilderingly positive" in light of "having lived a terrible life" worked odd jobs, primarily as a taxi driver, having been "blacklisted by the Russians after the 1968 invasion" after briefly working for the Czech government as an engineer. Dery writes of the political situation under communism, "By the mid-eighties, communism was like an old dragon that would occasionally crawl out from its cave and eat someone for dinner. As long as it wasn't you the dragon was eating, you could live with the sound of screams in the distance." Her parents were both expelled from the party for refusing to sign a political document that went against their beliefs and so lived under the watchful eye of a never-ending stream of informers (including the couple in a neighboring apartment) throughout the story. The real story, however, is of a family's ability to survive, and often thrive through the toughest of times. Everyday childhood happenings; a carp in the bathtub, an encounter with a famous ballet dancer, the amusing behavior of boys vying for her large-bosomed sister's attention, the antics of their large, former movie star dog, a bout of dysentery, and a misfortune-filled vacation to Poland, are skillfully brought to life in Dery's memoir. The stories in The Twelve Little Cakes are sure to raise your spirits and warm your heart.

Everyone who loves memoirs must read this one. It's a real eye-opening view of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe. I only hope everyone's lives are better now than they were in 1980, and that Ms. Dery is writing the next installment!

I picked this book up on a whim at the library. I'm glad I did. It tells the story of the author's childhood growing up in Czechoslovakia. In a ten year span, we see all of her adventures being the child of dissents parents in a small town, as well as witness her heartbreaks. Woven into the story is plenty of Czech history and culture, which made the setting come that much more alive. The characters in the book were also conveyed wonderfully. Her family, neighbors, and classmates seemed to come alive. The only downside I found was a couple of times I felt a bit lost with the discussion of Czech politics, and sometimes the story moved quite slowly. However, I'm actually interested in reading more Czech authors now!

You wouldn't think that a novel about being the daughter of dissidents in Communist Czechoslovakia would be funny, but this novel is hilarious. I shared my copy with several persons and purchased others as Christmas gifts (2006). I'm dubious whether Dominika could so accurately recall conversations as a young child as detailed in the book, but you will fall in love with her in this autobiography. Her refreshing honesty and childish innocence opened some of the hardest hearts in a difficult time when adults were fearful whom to trust and honest conversation had to be guarded. It's an insider's look into hard times under a Communist regime without being preachy. And their family vacation to Poland makes you understand why the Poles were the first to throw aside the iron curtain. I cannot recommend this book more highly, particularly to our newest generations (X and Y) who did not grow up in the Cold War.

Dominika Dery is a warm, passionate writer with the ability to convey her feelings off the page. The book reads and moves like a soft dream, fuzzy around the edges and warm in the middle. I found myself laughing out loud at her childish antics and the responses of the adults around her, then, almost at once, near tears as the heartache of living in a very opressed society rang true. She communicates with such balance that the move of emotion is rather seamless. I enjoyed the addition of Czech history and political issues and it aided in the setting and mood. I rejoiced, feared, cried and triumphed with her with each turn of the page. I highly recommend this book. You cannot help but be moved.

I found this book at a local dollar store and it turned out to be one of the best investments of a dollar. This was a great book. I love to read about other cultures and this gave me a huge insight into Czech culture three decades ago. Not only is it an interesting read, but it is told in the perspective of Dominika as a little girl into her pre-teens. It is nothing like reading a history book, and you get a very personal experience. This autobiography is heartwarming, relatable, sympathy-evoking, and even slightly whimsical. I wish this was a movie!