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Original Title: Pancakes-Paris Author: Claire Huchet Bishop Illustrator: Georges Schreiber Publication Date: 1947 by Viking Juvenile Language: English Hardcover: 62 pages ISBSN: 0670537837 ISBN 13: 978-0670537822 Literary Awards: Newberry Honor

Pancakes-Paris is a children’s novel written by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Georges Schreiber in 1947. This novel paints an image towards readers on what it was like to be a resident of post war france and in the early 1940’s. It shows the many everyday struggles of life during those times especially food scarcity. It also showed how humanely people who didn’t reside in France could be.

Background of Author: Claire Huchet Bishop (1899-1993) was librarian, critic, and writer who grew up in Le Havre, France. She attended the Sorborne and then later founded Frances first children’s library. She married pianist Frank Bishop and later moved to the United States. At that point she worked for the New York Public Library. She wrote many children’s books throughout her time and two of her books “Pancakes-Paris” (1947) and “All Alone” (1953) won Newberry Medals.

Character List: Charles, Zezette , Charles and Zezettes mother , Two American soldiers, School Children

Plot: The novel opens up introducing Charles who is a ten year old boy living in France with his younger sister Zezette and their mother. They are a poor family living in poverty and the end of the war only made things worse for them and many others. Charles soon comes to find out that he lost his father in the current war (world war two) and quickly decides to step up to the plate as being the man of the household. He starts by taking over the responsibility of caring for himself and younger sister after school at home until their mom comes home from work. Him and his friends reminisces of things they used to have readily available to them before the war like meat, eggs, pencils, pancakes, etc. Then one day Charles comes to figure that the younger kids around him and his friends didn’t believe that things of such even existed. After coming to this conclusion of the younger population, especially his sister, not having the things he did, Charles was deeply saddened and wanted to do something to help. As the story goes on, Charles comes across two American soldiers who needed directions to get to St. Séverin Church. Despite the language barrier between the soldiers and young Charles, he manages to give them directions and in return they gifted him a box of pancake mix. At first Charles was stunned because he didn’t realize what it was due to him not understanding English. Charles then realizes it was a box of pancake mix and he was enlightened. He then came to the conclusion, that he would make the pancakes for dinner for his poor family. He wants to do this in attempt to show them what it was like before the war and remind them that good times still exist. However in order for him to actually learn how to make the pancake mix for his family, he had to get someone that would be able to translate the instructions for him. Upon realizing that almost no one in France at that time was able to translate the instructions, he took it to the highest authority he could find, which was the U.S embassy located in Paris. He then embarked on his journey to the embassy to find someone to translate the instructions. On a night where everyone is saddened and reaping the negative outcomes of warfare, Charles finally gifts his family with pancakes and show them that there still is hope after practically losing everything.

Critical Reception: Overall it is a great book that shows readers what the post war France was like. It had many stereotypes about different people throughout the book. I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to see what kind of struggles people faced in France during and after the war.

Reviews: https://www.amazon.com/Pancakes-Paris-Claire-Huchet-Bishop/dp/0670537829 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/257947.Pancakes_Paris