Shooting Stars – Escapees from the Camp of Les Milles

Content : 1942.
Thirteen-year-old Mathilde lives across from the Camp des Milles, near Aix-en-Provence. She can enter thanks to her uncle, who deals in the black market. There, she meets many prisoners of foreign origin living in harsh conditions. She does what she can to ease their suffering. In the height of summer, the camp fills with women and children, mostly Jewish. Their arrival echoes the Vel d’Hiv roundup that has just taken place in Paris. Mathilde befriends Rachel, a young deportee. Together, they devise an incredible—but very dangerous—escape plan. Rich in anecdotes about this troubled period of history, this novel prompts reflection on our personal choices: “What would I have done in her place?”

About the author:
Marc Seassau wrote his first novels when his twins were old enough to read on their own. To keep telling them stories, even when they were not together, in the same warmth of a picture book whose pages they would turn aloud. The twins grew up. They are now parents themselves. Marc still has stories bursting in his head. For them, of course, for his grandchildren, and for other people’s grandchildren. For the warmth of a story that will be shared aloud… or in a whisper.