THE DOLL WITH THE YELLOW STAR

Claudine, a French Jewish girl, goes to live with relatives in America during WWII, shortly after her eighth birthday. As a gift, she had received Violette, a doll onto whose cape she had sewn a tiny yellow star, the hated symbol all Jews had been forced to wear. After a shipboard fire, Claudine loses her belongings, including Violette. Eventually, her father joins her in New York and brings the terrible news of her mother’s death. At war’s end, Claudine and Papa return to France, hoping to reclaim their lives, but they no longer feel at home there. She and Papa move back to New York and Claudine, a skilled writer, continues to pen stories. Then comes a wonderful surprise. This tender offering for younger readers would have been more affecting had McDonough not told it from an adult’s viewpoint; her coolly detached present-tense voice distances readers from Claudine’s tale. Root’s gentle, delicate paintings balance the grim realities. (Fiction. 8-12)