Unfamiliar Forms of Light-bookcover

By: Beccy Palmer

Unfamiliar Forms of Light

Pages: 72 Ratings:
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Told through the eyes of Booba (Grandma), this story follows the life of a young female dancer in 1930s-40s Eastern Europe. It explores themes of relationships, bravery, and unity in the face of hatred, both in the past and today, toward others simply because of their religion, race, colour, sexuality, or gender.

Booba has spent years researching the Holocaust, reading personal accounts, and listening to survivors’ stories. This book does not include names of people or places because she wants you to imagine it is your city, town, or village. She invites you to see yourself and those you know in the story and to experience its reality as if it were your own.

This recollection balances between fact and fiction, yet remains deeply believable. It is also a part of Booba’s heritage, a story she will never stop telling. At its core, this book is about the choices we make, even when limited, and how they shape who we are.

The title comes from a science program that described early life forms as being blind to unfamiliar light, forcing them to adapt to survive or disappear. Booba sees a reflection of humanity in this idea. People are often taught, conditioned, and sometimes forced to believe there is only one way to live, one way to die, and one way to see the world. She refuses to accept this.

She believes in something better.

Human beings are resourceful and intelligent, and she has witnessed countless moments of compassion and support between people. Booba pleads with the world, feeling that time is running out, to embrace our true selves and uncover the beauty we are capable of before it is too late.

Beccy Palmer was born and raised in London’s East End. She is immensely proud of her working-class Eastern European Jewish and Irish Catholic heritage. She has three wonderful children and four amazing grandchildren. She feels very lucky to have such a loving and supportive extended family and friends.

Throughout her career, Beccy has dedicated herself to developing programs that empower young people, encouraging them to engage with those who make decisions that affect their lives. She feels privileged to have been there on that journey with them. Having survived life-threatening brain cancer and intensive treatment, she felt a deep urgency to write about the stories she heard and read about over decades. These were accounts of real and harrowing experiences of those she never knew, and painful memories told by her family who escaped or survived the horrors of the Holocaust.

Beccy is a passionate campaigner against discrimination, hate, fascism and wars. She envisions a more united and just world, where people’s lives are valued above the accumulation of profit and where the pursuit of power and control of borders and land does not overshadow the lives of human beings.

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