A Time of Miracles

A Time of Miracles
Book Review III

Author: Anne-Laure Bondoux
Translator: Y.Maudet
Genre: Fiction
Subgenre: Historical
Primary Characters:
Secondary Characters:
Publishing: Delacorte Press 2010
Awards: Mildred L. Batchelder 2011

Theme: Relationships can hold strong even as the world crashes down around you.

Summary: During the war in Caucus, Gloria and Koumail are refugees running from one shelter to the next. Gloria has a terrible cough and Koumail's real name is Blaise Fortune. Gloria tells him that she adopted him after a terrible train wreck where his real mother died. He goes by Koumail in order to fit in with the others. At their first sheter, Koumail attends a poor school in an elderly lady's shack. When they are forced to flee to the next safe place, Koumail experiences love for the first time. Here they are paid to dig wire out of a junk yard. Unfortunately, Gloria and Koumail are forced to flee again. This time they are headed to France with false passports that Gloria has made.  Somehow the pair got separated on their way across the border. Koumail was sent to a foster building and was put through so that he could be come a French citizen. When he turns eightteen, he goes on a hunt for Gloria. He finds her back in the Caucus in a hospital due to her coughing spells.Once reunited, Gloria tells Blaise Fortune the truth about his childhood. He is in fact Gloria's child and was not adopted. The train wreck did happen, and Gloria had a hand in it. She felt terrible about it and decided to make up a story about the life of Blaise Fortune in order to protect him as a person.

Uses with students: In a classroom, this novel can be used in a discussion concerning the effects of war on people in history. Also, students can pretend to be Blaise and write letters to those whom he had to leave behind.