The Tortoise Shell Comb

By 10:00 p.m. on that Friday evening of May 1941, Victor Crespi should have returned home long ago. His wife; his daughter, Elise; and his eleven-year-old son, Simon, are anxious.

The next morning they learn the news: Victor Crespi was arrested by the French police on his way home from work. His ID card was stamped Jewish, which was enough to render an innocent man guilty and to send him off to a camp in the Loiret region.

For Simon and his family, it is the beginning of years of wandering, strewn with more roundups, more tears, and more crimes. Protected then betrayed, Simon encounters fear, abandon, and guilt, but also love and courage. Through escapes and hiding places, Simon has only his mother's tortoise shell comb to hang on to life.