What I'm Reading: From the Small Print to the Big Screen

This summer it seems like all my favorite books were turned into movies. Finally! I've felt so left out not being a Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Twilight fan. Two of the best books I read last year are in theaters, and I am really impressed with the casting and excited to see the movie versions - usually not the case.

The first book is Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay.

Before reading this book, I had never even heard of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup during the holocaust. The French authorities rounded up thousands of Jewish families and sent them to a transit camp and then on to Auschwitz. This event has been swept under the rug - or possibly ignored in the face of more public tragedies. De Rosnay writes an incredible fiction novel based on the facts of this day, and the facts come out being the hardest part to believe. In the book, Julie, a modern day journalist digging into the Vel' d'Hiv unearths the story of the Strazynski family. The family was rounded up during the raid. The daughter, Sarah, innocently locks her brother in a hidden closet thinking she will come back and save him when the family returns. The story follows Sarah's amazing journey to to get back to her brother.

In the movie, Kristin Scott Thomas plays the journalist trying to find out what happened to Sarah after the holocaust.

The second book, I don't think anyone has missed a preview for, The Help by Kathryn Stockett



Last summer, I was putting this book in the hands of everyone I could find - and I doubt there was a book club out there who missed it either. It is just that good. The story takes place in Jackson, MS in the 1960's. A local girl returns to Jackson after graduation from Ole Miss, and is not content to become a Junior League housewife like the girls she grew up among. Skeeter decides to write a book from the perspective of the black maids working in the women's homes. I cannot get over how well cast this movie is. I am so hoping they don't botch the book, because it is a treasure.

Hope you escape the heat this weekend!