Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

It’s normally my second girlie that I’m frantically previewing books for in December, but she’s deep in the throes of her junior year and so not reading a ton. On the other hand, when I saw Maria van Lieshout’s Song of a Blackbird described and realized that it was a dual-timeline Holocaust mystery with art as the key, well–that fits my oldest to a T. (I did worry at one point that it was going to go in a direction that would bug her, but it didn’t, and I was SO glad!) She should find the art interesting, even if it’s deliberately evocative of printmaking and thus uses a very limited color scheme, and she’s always been my mystery lover. I suppose I’m more of a devotee of Holocaust literature than she is, but she inherited enough of my love for history that it should still be a draw, so it’s a win–I ordered it from B&N (may Borders ever rest in peace) today.

For those of you wanting more of an actual plot description, Blackbird follows two teenagers in Amsterdam, Emma in 1943 and Annick in 2011. When Annick discovers that her grandmother, who is in need of a transplant, was actually adopted as a child, she dives hurriedly into the past to try to find her a biological relative who may be a match. That dive starts with a series of prints on a wall and leads, eventually, to Emma. How their stories connect involves a fictional story based on a good many historical events, and my daughter should love the ‘fight hate–make art’ theme van Lieshout explores. I found the color scheme required more light than usual for my eyes to appreciate, but as long as I was working with more than just my bed lamp, I did fine.

I highly recommend this one.