Zazoo Pa

I bought this book for my 7th grade French students to read. Zazoo touches on the French ocupation of Viet Nam as well as WWII. She is a mature and introspective young lady. I only hope my boys will relate in some way!

This book is a meandering, romantic, quietly epic exploration of history, friendship, love, and family.Zazoo lives with her adoptive grandfather, a veteran of the Second World War, by the edge of a river in France. All at the same time, she is trying to adjust to becoming a teenager, to figure out her own identity as a Vietnamese girl living with an old Frenchman, to learn more about her own history and biological parents, to take care of her aging grandfather, and to pursue a young love.The chapters are wonderfully short, letting you digest just a few pages at a time – great for beginning readers with low stamina or focus, and equally great for more skilled readers who like to read in short bursts.I connected most with Zazoo’s exploration of adoption. She is troubled by thoughts of her biological parents, and wonders how to reconcile her identity with that of her grandfather (who, she slowly learns, has a lengthy, violent past). I wondered about my own friends who have grown up with adoptive parents, and if Zazoo’s story would resonate with them. In the end, I think it’s a step in the right direction to have more young adult literature with adopted, female protagonists. (This is no Harry Potter. This is Harry Potter without the magic, and turned into a bedtime story.)Filled with poetic prose and actual poems, Zazoo has a lot to offer any reader. She writes poems with her grandfather, and they recite them together as they cook together, take their small sailboat out on the river, or skate across its surface in the winter months. Zazoo has a poem about a gray cat (who at times seems to symbolize her and her grandfather), and she slowly adds to it throughout the book. I particularly appreciated how Mosher slowly revealed information about Zazoo’s grandfather as if to mirror the slow reveal of the gray cat.My favorite line of the book, though, was a thought that occurs to Zazoo almost in passing about the nature of history:“I wondered if history always worked like this, with its listeners only hearing just the parts they chose to hear.”Mosher doesn’t seem to take any sides or make any extreme statements about the Second World War other than that one, a small, perfectly crafted sentence to sum up the nature of human bias and willful ignorance.The romance element is present, too, in Zazoo’s slowly evolving relationship with Marius, a boy from Paris. They correspond via postcard, and see each other only a handful of times, but the romance is a big part of what pushes the story forward; readers will keep turning pages to discover if the lovers will meet again.I’d recommend the book to readers looking for short chapters (perfect for Sustained Silent Reading times), lots of history, complex characters, and poetic, serious prose.

Zazoo may be Vietnamese by birth but she has been raised French, and this is how she thinks of herself. Orphaned when she was very young, Zazoo has spent 12 of her 14 years living in a sleepy little village in France with her adoptive grandfather, Grand-Pierre. Zazoo and Grand-Pierre share many things and two great loves: poetry and sailing on the canal where they share duties as lock-keepers.Early one October morning, while taking a swim, Zazoo meets Marius, an elusive bicyclist who asks questions about local pharmacist Monsieur Klein. Because Marius cannot stay for very long, Zazoo agrees to find out the answer for him. Zazoo starts to investigate Monsieur Klein, and along the way, many other questions arise. What did Grand-Pierre do during World War II? Why do the villagers treat him with respect mixed with fear? And what are the mysteries of Zazoo's own origins? Before the end of the book, Zazoo learns more about her adoptive grandfather and their little village than anyone ever would have guessed.Sometimes the best books are the ones with slow pace storylines. This is the case with ZAZOO by Richard Mosher. Told through the eyes of its title character, Zazoo is a sweet, quiet story about war, love, and how time really can heal all things. --- Reviewed by Kat, Reading Diva

Thirteen-year-old Zazoo is an orphaned Vietnamese girl who lives on the quiet banks of a French canal with her elderly adoptive Grand-Pierre. Her life is peaceful, marked only by worries about her increasingly aged and beloved grandfather. One day, her life is disturbed by a seemingly chance encounter with a boy on a bicycle who asks questions that lead Zazoo to start to question her grandfather's past. What happened to him during World War II, which he calls the Awful Time? And why do the villagers call him a hero, but seem to be afraid of him?This is a quiet story about past life and present, filled with missed romance and romance that spans generations. Zazoo's narrative is lively and sweet and innocent, peppered with poetry and occasional true insight. And the mystery of Grand-Pierre's past, as well as the motives of Zazoo's bicycling friend, are compelling enough to move the story to its very beautiful and touching end. It's not an exciting story, but it is a lovely one.

Zazoo is a 13-year-old Vietnamese girl who lives with her adoptive French grandfather in a romantic Normandy setting, surrounded by natural beauty and fascinated by the mysterious, at times oppressive past of the land and its people. Somewhere in the transition from 13 to 14, Zazoo starts on her own journey of discovery to find her roots, and to solve the riddle of her grandfather's past. The novel is a lyrical narrative with several story threads bound together in a web of reminiscences that spring from the minds of different characters, each revealing different aspects of the truth. Behind the appearance of a peaceful countryside existence, the reader discovers the intense emotional lives of the main characters, each one on a quest of self discovery.The book starts as a promise for teen romance, however, as it progresses, it unveils a complex tapestry of past events unfolding in a slowly revealing drama, expanding in time over generations and cultures. Several motifs are apparent in the book: the horror and senselessness of war, the devastating consequences of prejudice and intolerance, the healing power of love and forgiveness, and the beauty of friendship. The pictorial fabric of the book and its subtle blend of prose and poetry ensure the novel's final unifying design. The contemplative, static nature of Richard Mosher's novel may not appeal to all readers. Brief descriptions of violence (atrocities of WWII) are unsuitable for younger readers.