Synopsis:
This charming book will delight any child or adult who appreciates ballet, Paris, New York, childhood, and mystery (not necessarily in that order). The book's plot is deceptively simple: Catherine, the eponymous heroine, begins her story watching her own daughter demonstrate jazz steps in their ballet school on a snowy afternoon in New York. Memory takes her (and the reader) back to her childhood, spent in the tenth arrondissement of Paris. In her youth, Catherine lives with her gentle father, Georges Certitude, who runs a shipping business with his partner, a loud, failed poet named Casterade. The real partners in this story, however, are the father and daughter who share the simple pleasures of daily life: sitting in the church square, walking to school, going to her ballet class every Thursday afternoon.
Behind this gossamer storyline, Catherine Certitude is filled with mystery. Why did Georges change his name to Certitude? What kind of trouble with the law did Casterade rescue him from? Exactly what does Georges do, and what kind of deals is he always discussing with men in worn raincoats? Why did Catherine's mother, herself a ballerina, leave Georges to return to New York? That these mysteries remain mysteries is part of the book's charm. But that Catherine and her father love the ballet, music, and City of Lights, is certain.
About the Author:
Patrick Modiano is a celebrated French novelist, author of numerous books for adults and children. His work has been translated into over 30 languages. Notable awards include the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Francaise, the Prix Goncourt and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. In 2014 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 'for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies.' Born in France in 1932, Jean-Jacques Sempe is one of the world's most successful illustrators and cartoonists. His work includes numerous covers of the New Yorker magazine, full-page cartoons in Paris Match, the illustrations of the classic children's book character, Nicholas, and many albums of cartoons and graphic novels. He lives in Paris.
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