Monday, March 24, 2014

Bookfriend and The Seventh Child

Original title: Det syvende barn

A while back, I mentioned that I might be doing some volunteer work for the Red Cross - I am actually already doing it: I have become a book friend for lonely elderly woman. Picking up and dropping off library books for her and 1-2 visit every month where we discuss a book, that we have chosen to read. Amazing that you can do volunteer work and read books in order to do it. We are challenging each other a bit regarding the books, as we do have different book taste, but it is nice to get out of the reading comfort zone and encounter new authors etc.

The first book was The Seventh Child by Erik Valeur, which have locally won a lot of prizes albeit some readers find several passages to be a little too long. Interestingly enough so did my book friend only to realize that when she read some of those passages a little too fast she missed small details that combined changed the story and made more meaning. I could not help challenge a colleague who has also read the book - she had fast-read some passages too and she had actually missed out on the same details as my book friend. This underlines this statement, that I recently found on Pinterest.

7 children have more in common that meets the eye - they are all born at the same maternity ward in Copenhagen and all of them are put up for adoption via the same orphanage Kongslund - but one of them has a dark story unbeknownst to the child. Abortion was illegal in the 60s in Denmark so this tells the story of a lot unwanted children focusing on the seven children to find out one of the big secret.

Years after an elderly woman is found at the beach with no ID but among items placed at the body is an old photo of Kongslund - the hidden story slowly emerges after anonymous letter being sent to some of the now grown up children in hope of revealing the true story. Who knows the truth about what happened? Who is that 7th child as the name does not exist anywhere?



1 comment:

Birdie said...

Good for you on the visiting and how nice she is also a "reader." The book sounds very interesting. Time for me to check the library.