Horn Book (Thu Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

In this verse novel based on a true story, a little French Jewish girl recounts her childhood during World War II. When she is sent to a country village, posing as a Christian, the uncertainty of her life filled with secrets is beautifully realized, allowing Odette's terror, confusion, gradual acceptance, and new familiarity with God to come through in a very personal way.

ALA Booklist (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Set in France during WWII, Odette's Secrets is a novelization, in verse, of the life of Odette Meyers, whose autobiography, Doors to Madame Marie (1997) was an inspiration for this book. When life in Paris becomes too dangerous for Jews, including Odette, the young girl is sent to the countryside, where she must disguise herself as a French peasant and Christian, keeping her true identity a closely guarded secret. After many months, Odette's mother, who has worked with the French Resistance, joins her and, like Odette, must lose her own Jewish identity. Two and one-half years later, Paris is liberated, and Odette and her mother return to the city, but can Odette resume her true identity as a Jew or has her assumed Christianity become too much a part of her being? Though sometimes lacking in drama, this quiet story will nevertheless offer readers new insights into considerations of being a Jew during WWII and the complex ways that we define our identity.

Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Introspective and accessible, this fictionalized history of a Jewish child surviving the Nazi occupation of France uses an elegant simplicity of language. Odette, quite young, lives comfortably in a Paris apartment "on a cobblestone square / with a splashing fountain." Watching a newsreel, she sees "soldiers march, / their legs and arms straight as sticks. / A funny-looking man with a mustache / shouts a speech." The next day, she sees a Jewish-owned store with smashed windows. Mama and Papa are secular, but "[w]e are Polish Jews because / Mama's and Papa's parents and grandparents / in faraway Poland / are all Jews." Papa joins the French army and is taken prisoner; yellow stars are assigned; Mama sends Odette out of Paris. For 2 1/2 years, Odette practices Catholicism in one village and then another, growing attached to religious ritual and the countryside. Macdonald's free verse uses unadorned images: A blanket from Odette's devoted (Christian) godmother; schoolchildren pounding out "La Marseillaise" on desks with their fists to drown out rowdy German soldiers; those same children rolling Odette in a thorn bush when they suspect her secret. Odette's first-person voice matures subtly as she grows in age and in comprehension of the war's horrors. Based on the real Odette Meyers (née Melspajz), this thoughtful, affecting piece makes an ideal Holocaust introduction for readers unready for death-camp scenes. (timeline, historical photographs, author's note) (Historical verse fiction. 9-15)

School Library Journal (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Gr 5-8 This story opens as World War II is beginning and the persecution of Jews in France is escalating. After Paris falls to the Nazis, Odette is rushed to the countryside, where she hides in plain sight by living with a family and pretending to be Christian. There she struggles with her identity. The strength of the novel lies in MacDonald's meticulous research, which is explained in an author's note, of the real Odette Meyers, whose photos are included. The author weaves in facts about Odette's life and the events taking place at the time with imagined scenarios in which Odette may have found herself. However, the author's free-verse prose style makes readers acutely aware that an adult is trying to write from a child's perspective, and it sounds not so much poetic as fragmentary and unorganized. This book is a good introduction for children interested in how the war and the Holocaust affected the everyday lives of kids their age, but in a field with so many classics and reinterpretations of similar stories, such as Judith Kerr's When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Collins, 1971), Lois Lowry's Number the Stars (Houghton, 1989), Jennifer Roy's Yellow Star (Marshall Cavendish, 2006), and Sandi Toksvig's Hitler's Canary (Roaring Brook, 2007), it's an additional purchase. Anne Barreca, New York Public Library

Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Introspective and accessible, this fictionalized history of a Jewish child surviving the Nazi occupation of France uses an elegant simplicity of language. Odette, quite young, lives comfortably in a Paris apartment "on a cobblestone square / with a splashing fountain." Watching a newsreel, she sees "soldiers march, / their legs and arms straight as sticks. / A funny-looking man with a mustache / shouts a speech." The next day, she sees a Jewish-owned store with smashed windows. Mama and Papa are secular, but "[w]e are Polish Jews because / Mama's and Papa's parents and grandparents / in faraway Poland / are all Jews." Papa joins the French army and is taken prisoner; yellow stars are assigned; Mama sends Odette out of Paris. For 2 1/2 years, Odette practices Catholicism in one village and then another, growing attached to religious ritual and the countryside. Macdonald's free verse uses unadorned images: A blanket from Odette's devoted (Christian) godmother; schoolchildren pounding out "La Marseillaise" on desks with their fists to drown out rowdy German soldiers; those same children rolling Odette in a thorn bush when they suspect her secret. Odette's first-person voice matures subtly as she grows in age and in comprehension of the war's horrors. Based on the real Odette Meyers (née Melspajz), this thoughtful, affecting piece makes an ideal Holocaust introduction for readers unready for death-camp scenes. (timeline, historical photographs, author's note) (Historical verse fiction. 9-15)