Victor Labouyrie Labouyrie itibaren Chéronvilliers, França
This was the first book that our Mothers of 10th Graders book club is reading. We are reading the same books that our kids are assigned at school and then we get together to discuss the books and drink wine while we do it. I found it curious that we'd start with this book and not Maus, which the kids just finished and looked really discussion worthy. But, Montana 1948 it was and so I read. It's hard for me to review the book without keeping in the back of my mind that 16 year-olds will start reading it next week. It's hard to review it as just a 41 year-old and not as a 41-year-old mother. It was an excellent book and it didn't hold back at all with what it wanted to say in its straightforward story and in the symbolic one underneath. It layered and deep and awfully sad. I'm pretty sure that the book is being assigned in their history class, which was the same class that required them to read Maus. I guess history is mostly pretty sad. There is some harsh language, but at 16, I assume the kids have heard all the words that were written in this book. There are also some explicit descriptions of sexual assault, which I'm not sure the kids this age have encountered before, and may very well make them squirm while reading those passages. I think that's a perfectly fine thing. Nothing in the book was gratuitous, but it didn't pull back anywhere either. I think it's rather brave for this teacher to assign this book, which in the end, was an excellent work of literature on its own.