Mum of a 6-year-old
I’ll admit I didn’t expect a picture book about a French mime to be the one my six-year-old would beg for night after night, but here we are. The Not So Quiet Life of Marcel Marceau, written by Jenn Bailey and Sherry Bushue and illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski, tells the true story of young Marcel Mangel, a Jewish boy growing up in Strasbourg who fell in love with Charlie Chaplin’s silent films, fled with his family as the Nazis advanced, and went on to join the French Resistance with his brother before becoming the most famous mime of the twentieth century.
It surprised me just how taken my daughter was with all of it. She’s been doing impressions around the house for days, arms floating, face frozen mid-expression, completely captivated by the idea that someone could tell a whole story without saying a word. I hadn’t expected mime to be the thing that hooked her, but it absolutely was, and it opened the door to so many conversations about courage, identity, and what it means to find your own way of being brave, even when the world around you is frightening.
What I loved most as a mum was how naturally it introduced real history and culture into our bedtime routine. The book handles war, loss, and the Resistance with real care and restraint, never too heavy for little ears, but honest enough that we could talk through the harder parts together. Zagarenski’s dreamlike, painterly illustrations are extraordinary, full of birds and butterflies and quiet symbolism that gave us so much to pore over on each page.
It’s not your typical bedtime story, but that’s exactly why it’s become one of our favourites. A gorgeous, moving introduction to a remarkable life, and one I’d happily recommend to any family wanting to bring a little more history and heart into story time.
The Not So Quiet Life of Marcel Marceau is available to purchase now through Allen & Unwin.