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Black Radishes

Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winner Black Radishes is a suspenseful WWII/Holocaust story, in which one boy learns what it means to be Jewish and French at a time when everything is changing.

     It is March of 1940. The French believe that their army can protect them from Nazi Germany. But is Paris a safe place for Jews? Gustave’s parents don’t think so. Forced to leave behind his best friend, the mischievous Marcel, and his cousin Jean-Paul, Gustave moves with his mother and father to Saint-Georges, a small village in the countryside.

     During April and May, Nazi Germany invades one country after another. In June, the French army is defeated, and Paris is occupied. Saint-Georges is still part of the free zone, but the situation there is becoming increasingly precarious.

Then Gustave meets Nicole, a Catholic girl who works for the French Resistance. Along with her father, Nicole tries to find a way to smuggle Jean-Paul, Marcel, and their families into Free France so that they can all escape to America. It is Gustave, however, who comes up with a plan that just might work. But going into Occupied France is a risky thing to do when you are Jewish.

     Inspired by her father’s experiences as a Jewish child living in France during World War II, Susan Lynn Meyer tells the story of a family’s day-to-day struggles in a country that may not be able to keep its promise of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 240
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780385738811
  • Settings
  • France
  • Genres
  • holocaust, historical, france, war, fiction, juvenile
  • Release date
  • 2010