just keep telling the story

The Quintland Sisters by Shelley Wood
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: The first 80% of this book is really quite good.  It details the better part of the first five years of the real-life Dionne Quintuplets, through the eyes of their fictional nurse, Emma Trimpany.  Emma is 17 in 1934 when she assists the midwife at the quints' birth, and has led a fairly sheltered life until then.  As the Depression deepens and the situation is Germany gets worse and worse, Emma's focus remains resolutely on her charges, staying with them even as many other caretakers come and go.  Even naive Emma is shaken by the conflicts between the quints' medical caretakers and their parents, and she can't entirely ignore hints that some people who claim to care for the quints are really there to exploit them, a list that starts with their parents and primary doctor and goes all the way up to the Canadian government.  Told through Emma's journals, and letters she receives, as well as newspaper articles that, we are told in the author's interview, are almost entirely unedited contemporaneous sources (and Wood carefully delineates where any edits have occurred), we get a good feel for the situation.

Throughout the book we read letters sent to Emma from her would-be beau, Lewis, and at the end of the book, Wood makes the unfortunate decision to give us all of Emma's letters in return, as a way of answering a lot of the questions that have come up in the narrative.  It amounts to an info-dump, at the end of  a well-told story.  I think Emma's letters were supposed to be the "big reveal," answering some questions about what was really going on, but I wish Wood had told her story more organically, giving us Emma's and Lewis's letters together and letting the tale unfold as it happened.  The ending is satisfying, in its way, but seems very ragged compared to the rest of the book.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

among the Righteous

Victor Kugler: The Man Who Hid Anne Frank by Rick Kardonne and Eda Shapiro

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Genre: biography

Review: Almost everyone knows the story of Anne Frank. Far fewer people know the story of one of the men who hid her and her family from the Gestapo for 2 years. The mere fact of having his story of bravery be told makes this book worthwhile.

Victor Kugler's story shines brightest when told in his own voice. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often. Large portions of the book are taken from the notes of Eda Shapiro, who interviewed Kugler late in his life. This is fine, as far as it goes, but Shapiro's words are also used to give us historical background information on topics such as WWII and the history of Jews in Holland. Surely a more authoritative source could have been found for these subjects.

At least this historical background is interesting. Not so the rest of the book's padding, including descriptions of various dramatic and musical productions of Anne Frank's story that Kugler attended and his reaction to them, and descriptions awards and honors that Kugler was given, including his inclusion among the Righteous Gentiles at Yad Vashem, all well-deserved. I could have lived with a lot less of this extraneous material, especially since Kugler's story stands so well on its own.

FTC disclaimer: I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for this review.

the river and the people

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Genre: historical fiction

Review: Great story with great, believable characters. The language occasionally faltered into too-modern speech, but overall the setting is well-constructed. The conflicts are realistic, as are the resolutions. The black and white period photos are a great addition. A very enjoyable read.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.