Small Acts of Defiance

by Michelle Wright
Published by Allen and Unwin
ISBN 9781760292652

From the first page I knew this book was going to be a winner. I was totally hooked into the story and eagerly looked forward to my reading time each morning. as I read about the courage and resilience mustered in during difficult days.

The author has researched the topic well. Living in Paris for a few months,  has been beneficial to the way in which she describes the streets and places Lucie, one of the main characters, walks each day. As a Francophile, and having been to France more times than I can recall, it's a pleasure to picture the places she describes.

The story is told through the lives of an Australian talented teenage artist Lucie, her French mother Yvonne and her Parisian uncle Gerard. It is based on life in Paris, and parts of regional France, during World War II and the time of the Nazi occupation.

The descriptions of what happened to the people that Lucie knew and became friends with are heart wrenching. There are also times of joy and I frequently found myself either almost in tears or smiling widely.

The story tells it like it was, no glossing over and I was grateful for that. Through her art Lucie meets a Jewish family, Samuel, a professor of art at the university, his grand-daughter, Aline and her mother Simone, who is a doctor. She sees first hand what happens to this family through the anti-Jewish feeling in France by the French people and the German occupiers.

Lucie is faced with escalating brutality of anti-Jewish measures, and the attitude of many Parisians, and so she decides how far she will go to defend the rights of others.

Lucie becomes part of the Resistance, using her drawings to draw small acts of defiance against the occupying forces and the local collaborators who denounce so called traitors. While Lucie is grateful for the safe haven that her uncle provides for her mother and herself, she strongly opposes her uncle's views.

It is also, in part, a story of the French Resistance and what lengths they would go to to save their freedom and their beloved Republic from these heinous occupiers. A story of everyday people trying to go about their lives under these circumstances. It's about mis-guided prejudice and the goodness in people.

In summary, this is a compelling read with an insight into the attitudes and reactions of people during harsh times. I would recommend this book to friends.

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