Sarahs Surprise

Six-year-old Sarah, mobile but unable to talk, wants to sing "Happy Birthday" for her mother and is able to provide a birthday surprise with help from her therapist and a new augmentative communication device.

It is Sarah's first day of work at The Lagoon Cafe. Sarah serves the customers with her co-worker Ji-Sung while Mrs. Hayes, the owner, goes out shopping. A man Sarah does not know comes into the cafe and takes food without paying. Sarah and Ji-Sung call the police. While they are telling the police what happened, Mrs. Hayes comes into the store followed by the man who "stole" the food. Mrs. Hayes identifies the man as her husband who also owns the cafe.

It is Sarah's first day of work at The Lagoon Cafe. Sarah serves the customers with her co-worker Ji-Sung while Mrs. Hayes, the owner, goes out shopping. A man Sarah does not know comes into the cafe and takes food without paying. Sarah and Ji-Sung call the police. While they are telling the police what happened, Mrs. Hayes comes into the store followed by the man who "stole" the food. Mrs. Hayes identifies the man as her husband who also owns the cafe.

Winner of the 2011 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Crime Novel In Middle East lore the Debba is a mythical Arab hyena that can turn into a man who lures Jewish children away from their families to teach them the language of the beasts. To the Arabs he is a heroic national symbol; to the Jews he is a terrorist. To David Starkman, “The Debba” is a controversial play, written by his father the war hero, and performed only once, in Haifa in 1946, causing a massive riot. By 1977, David is living in Canada, having renounced his Israeli citizenship and withdrawn from his family, haunted by persistent nightmares about his catastrophic turn as a military assassin for Israel. Upon learning of his father’s gruesome murder, he returns to his homeland for what he hopes will be the final time. Back in Israel, David discovers that his father's will demands he stage the play within forty-five days of his death, and though he is reluctant to comply, the authorities’ evident relief at his refusal convinces him he must persevere. With his father’s legacy on the line, David is forced to reimmerse himself in a life he thought he’d escaped for good.The heart-stopping climax shows that nothing in Israel is as it appears, and not only are the sins of the fathers revisited upon the sons, but so are their virtues—and the latter are more terrible still. Disguised as a breathtaking thriller, Avner Mandelman’s novel reveals Israel’s double soul, its inherent paradoxes, and its taste for both art and violence. The riddle of the Debba—the myth, the play, and the novel— is nothing less than the tangled riddle of Israel itself.

After Sarah Trestle botches a simple shoplifting attempt, she is worried that she will get kicked out of her clique of friends, which is made up of three other girls named Sarah whose main summer activities are volunteer work and the occasional petty crime.

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life. Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.