by Elisabeth Combres, translated from the French by Shelley Tanaka

Combres sheds some light on the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi community in Rwanda. Using accounts by victims, survivors and perpetrators, Combrescondenses their viewpoints into four main characters. Emma, a young girl who witnessed her mother’s murder ten years ago, narrates the story. With the help of other survivors, she learns how to move past the memories and find a way to go to school. There’s a lot of information about how survivors live with these kinds of memories, and sometimes the information dominates the personal story. Though the book reads quickly, the subject matter is definitely for upper elementary and middle school readers. Not a casual read, it could be useful to students studying the Holocaust and other more recent genocides.

reviewed by Victoria