Que deviennent les enfants quand la nuit tombe?
by Jean-Paul Nozière
(basically accurate translation: What happens to children after nightfall?)
This wasn't a very long book, but as always, I liked the cover. Then when I borrowed it, the librarian told me she'd heard really good things about it.
I think I know why people really liked it. It was very different, unexpected. To quote cliché book reviewers: a breath of fresh air. The story wasn't very complex: two periods in time that eventually become connected by a series of strange and tragic events.
It starts with the story of a modern-age teenage girl who just moved to an abandoned farmhouse lost in the middle of nowhere. Her father is something of an oddity, has long black hair and an online degree in detective inspection. He has plans to renovate the house and barn into a livable space and has dragged his complacent wife and less complacent daughter into helping him. Until a terrifying discovery is made. The skeleton of a long dead teenage girl is found under the floor of the barn with a green stone necklace around her neck.
Across the sea and the years, two children live on a French island near South America. The boy is trouble and the girl decides to become his best friend, whether he wants her to or not. So they become best friends. Until the girl suddenly doesn't show up. She has been sent to a children's home on the other side of the island: there were simply too many mouths to feed in her family and not enough money to feed them all. The boy decides to get sent to the children's home as well (which was going to happen to him anyway) to find her. Eventually, they get sent to France together because they're too much trouble. Life in the home is hell, especially for two black children in a white world. But one thing keeps them connected: two matching green stone necklaces.
You could tell that the two stories would become intertwined, but it wasn't until the end that you realized how. I don't like endings in general, but this one was unexpected and piqued your curiosity for the last few chapters so that when the book ends, you don't want to let go.
I liked this book because it was well written, the way that the characters spoke felt natural and normal, and I loved the powerful bond of friendship that united the two children from the island. In the end, it shows us that nothing can overcome such a true bond, not even death. It was a beautiful morale, beautifully written.
Read this book, even if the cover may look a bit silly, and the book itself isn't very long.
The one thing I didn't understand about the book is the title. I like it, but I don't see how it connects to the story.
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