Dery, Dominika. The Twelve Little Cakes: Memoir of a Prague Childhood.

DERY, Dominika. The twelve little cakes; memoir of a Prague childhood. Penguin, Riverhead. 370p. c2004. 1-59448-139-3. $15.00. JSA 

Dominika Dery was born in the mid-'70s in Prague to a young couple who were considered dissidents by the ruling Communists. Her mother was the daughter of high-ranking party members who disowned her when she married a poor dissident, yet her parents managed to make a happy, if impoverished, childhood home for their two daughters. Dery tells her story through childish eyes, but her observations about the Czech society in the '70s and '80s are very mature. Her descriptions of her parents, her sister, the neighbors and her childhood friends are both sweet and tart. She tells the story of her aspirations, her predicaments, and her parents' financial difficulties and distress; she loves her parents, but acknowledges how their failings added to their troubles. She is especially funny when describing her father's continuous plans for improving their house, his penchant for inventions and for taking risks. Her attempts to create a relationship with her wealthy Communist grandparents are poignant and illustrate how political differences split families apart. Dery reveals herself to have been a little girl with high hopes and plans for herself as a dancer who, in spite of many mishaps and misadventures, succeeded, because of sheer will and ingenuity in surviving a political system that stacked everything against her. Nola Theiss, Sanibel, FL