Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay)

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten-year girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard -- their secret hiding place -- and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.

Sixty years later: Sarah's story interwines with that of Julia Jarmond, a journalist investigating the roundup. In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah and to questions about her own future.

Zakhor, Al Tichkah ("Never forget" in Hebrew)

This story is so painful yet compelling. Like Julia, one is torn between the desire to know and the comfort of ignorance. I have donated this book to the PHS library. (MLH, faculty).

Twilight-Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

The Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer was over all ok in my opinion. There was quite a bit of conflict throughout the 3 books but at the end evry single problem was somehow solved in about 5-10 minutes give or take. The entire series seemed like a modern day fairy tale in that the girl got the guy, they both ended up perfect looking, they got married, and even got a pet (sorry Jacob). The level of utter perfection that Edward and Bella have at the end of the story is at times just sickining. Not to say that it was a bad series, at times it was pretty thrilling but the fact that Breaking Dawn almost literaly ends with "... and they lived happily ever after" almost made me gag. I'll admit that I'm a guy and kinda outa the loop when it comes to romance but even this seemed a little corny at the end. The main redeeming quality was that even with the corny love story between Bella and Edward there was enough going on in the backround to keep me interested. The idea of a human living with vampires and werewolves made it worthwhile to see it through to the end, as well as the action of whenever Bella got herself into trouble with Vampires other then the Cullens. Over all I'd give the series a C+ (Gary, Junior)