Author: Tatiana DeRosnay
Published: 2007
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Number of Pages: 294
My Rating: 4
Summary from GoodReads.com:
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten
year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the
Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard
in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris,
May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked
to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her
contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family
secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to
retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the
camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question
her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Sarah's Key jumps
back and forth between a young girl in Paris, 1942 and a present-day journalist
in Paris, 2002. Sarah's family is Jewish during World War II and have been
scared and on-edge, something that ten-year-old Sarah doesn't quite understand.
What is happening to them? Why does her dad hide in the cellar at night? Police
come to their door to take them away and Sarah quickly locks her
little brother in a cupboard to protect him, assuming they will be back soon...
Julia Jarmond is
a journalist in Paris who is assigned to research and write an article about a
dark day in France's past that no one wants to talk about. It is coming up on
the 60th anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv roundup where families were held
for days on end without adequate food or facilities until they were
shipped off to different concentration camps. She is oddly entranced by this
history and feels a connection to a certain little girl. As she uncovers more
and more about Sarah and her past, she discovers some new facts
that somehow link them together through the years.
While Julia is
investigating, she is also dealing with marriage problems and other personal
issues that take a big toll on her. She is spreading herself thin and gets so
caught up in finding out about Sarah that she begins to feel
apathetic towards her husband and their failing marriage. At times I felt
frustrated with the Julia chapters as she seemed to complain a lot about things
but then didn't really stand up for anything or make any changes to help things
out for the better. I really liked the Sarah chapters and wished the
author would have spent a little bit more time on her journey instead of on
Julia being a doormat.
I loved the
historical aspects of this book. Even though it is a work of fiction, many of
the events in history are accurate and are ones that don't receive a ton of
attention. It was amazing to learn so much about the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup in
France during World War II as that was a piece of history I had never read
about before. Overall, I felt like Tatiana de Rosnay did an excellent job
researching this subject and bringing it all to our attention. She shared an
important historical experience with readers in a unique way and for that I
applaud her. If Rosnay's main mission in writing this book was to ensure we
became aware of the children of Vel' d'Hiv, then she succeeded.
-Busy Brunette 
