All the Light We Cannot See

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Bibliographic data:

Doerr, Anthony (2014).  All the Light We Cannot See.  Read by Zach Appleman.  New York: Simon & Schuster Audio.

Summary: 

Marie-Laure lives in Paris with her father.  When Marie-Laure goes blind at age 6, her father and his colleagues at Museum of Natural-History work together to ensure she is able to navigate her way though the world.  When the Nazi’s occupy Paris during World War II, Marie-Laure’s father is given an important task, which takes them away from the city to her uncle’s home on the coast.  Here, Marie-Laure’s life forever changes.

Werner is a German boy living in an orphanage with his younger sister.  He is mechanically minded, brilliant and ambitious.  After finding a broken radio, he teaches himself how to repair it.  Soon, he is repairing every radio in his small town.  These skills eventually take him to a Hitler youth academy where he builds his technical and emotional knowledge before joining the war. 

Without knowing of each other, Marie-Laure and Werner’s lives are deeply intertwined.  Do a radio, a diamond and a war have the power to bring them together?

Analysis: 

Written for older young adult readers, All the Light We Cannot See is a complicated read.  To begin, there are multiple story lines that cover multiple countries and years.  These stories are not told solely from the perspectives of Marie-Laure and Werner, but also half a dozen other characters.  In addition to these complicated aspects, the story is not presented chronologically.  The opening chapter has Marie-Laure in her uncle’s house as Saint-Malo is being bombed near the end of the war.  After this, we are with a young Werner in Germany, then Marie-Laure before she looses her vision.  These elements are engaging, however they require an advanced reader with solid comprehension skills.

While historically accurate, Marie-Laure and Werner are easily relatable.  Their concerns and thoughts mirror those of youth today, in spite of the darkness of their time period.  The powerlessness they feel, unable to fully control their lives, as well as their restlessness to want to be somewhere else are fairly universal themes for young people. 

It is interesting to have a story about World War II that tells the perspective of German citizens.  While there are many stories that speak to the tribulations those under the Nazi’s experienced, it is rare to hear the perspective of common Germans or Nazi soldiers.   This perspective would make an interesting discussion point to speak about group mindset, selfishness versus selflessness or to use as a writing prompt against a book such as Night by Elie Wiesel.

Activity:

Marie-Laure and Werner’s lives are interconnected due to radios.  Years before she was born, Marie-Laure’s grandfather and great-uncle produced a scientific radio program.  Marie-Laure’s uncle continues to broadcast the program using a transmitter in his attic.  As children, Werner and his sister find the program and love listening to the calm voice explain difficult scientific concepts. 

Readers will create their own children’s radio program.  The readers will decide on a topic on which they are experts.  They should create an outline of the key concepts that are important to the subject, and then write a script breaking these concepts down so that young children would be able to learn from their expertise.  When they are finished, they will record and publish their script to a site such as youtube.com.

Related Resources:

Every year for Marie-Laure’s birthday, she receives two gifts from her father: a Braille book and a homemade puzzle box with chocolates inside.  Despite her blindness, Marie-Laure is always able to quickly discover the secrets of his puzzle boxes, even though they often have more than a dozen steps to solve.

Puzzle Boxes: Fun and Intriguing Band Saw Projects would bring these puzzle boxes to life for a skilled reader.  The book provides instructions on how to create wooden puzzle boxes, just like the ones Marie-Laure received for her birthday.

Vollmer, Jeff. (2012).  Puzzle Boxes: Fun and Intriguing Band Saw Projects. Cincinnati: F+W Media.

Marie-Laure’s father works at the Paris Museum of Natural History.  Until the occupation of Paris, Marie-Laure accompanies him when he goes to work.  Here, the museum’s scientists and director teach Marie-Laure about the artifacts in the museum and encourage her curiosity about the scientific world.

Using the automatic translation feature of Google Chrome, English speaking readers can experience the modern day Paris museum through its website.  Of particular interest based on the book would be the Jewels of the Museum page, where gems and precious stones can be viewed or the Evolution of Living which features biological sciences.

Museum National D’Histoire Naturelle.  Retrieved from https://www.mnhn.fr/fr (accessed July 8, 2016)

Published Review:

“A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned, Doerr’s magnificently drawn story seems at once spacious and tightly composed. It rests, historically, during the occupation of France during WWII, but brief chapters told in alternating voices give the overall—and long—­narrative a swift movement through time and events. We have two main characters, each one on opposite sides in the conflagration that is destroying Europe. Marie-Louise is a sightless girl who lived with her father in Paris before the occupation; he was a master locksmith for the Museum of Natural History. When German forces necessitate abandonment of the city, Marie-Louise’s father, taking with him the museum’s greatest treasure, removes himself and his daughter and eventually arrives at his uncle’s house in the coastal city of Saint-Malo. Young German soldier Werner is sent to Saint-Malo to track Resistance activity there, and eventually, and inevitably, Marie-Louise’s and Werner’s paths cross. It is through their individual and intertwined tales that Doerr masterfully and knowledgeably re-creates the deprived civilian conditions of war-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers.High-Demand Backstory: A multipronged marketing campaign will make the author’s many fans aware of his newest book, and extensive review coverage is bound to enlist many new fans.”

Hooper, Brad. (2014).  All the Light We Cannot See. n.p.: Booklist, 2014. Book Index with Reviews, EBSCOhost (accessed July 8, 2016).