by Sara Pennypacker
4.8 · 4 reviewsPetit éclair. That's what the other boys at the orphanage call Lucas Dubois.
Petit éclair. That's what the other boys at the orphanage call Lucas Dubois. Lucas is tired of his cowardly reputation, just as he's tired of the war and the Nazi occupation of his little French village. He longs to show how brave he can be. He gets the chance when he saves a litter of kittens from cruel boys and brings them to an abandoned stable to care for them. There he comes upon a stranger who is none too happy to see him: Alice, the daughter of a horse trainer, who is hiding her filly from German soldiers. Soon Lucas begins to realize they are not the only ones in their village with secrets. Emboldened by the unlikely heroes all around him, Lucas is forced to decide how much he is willing to risk to make the most courageous rescue of all.
4 reviews
The title is doing a lot of quiet work and you only see it in the last act. I finished this on a Sunday afternoon and thought about it for the rest of the week.
288 pages that move. The animals are never just symbols, which I appreciated — they're work, and risk, and something to protect. Slight quibble that a couple of the village adults blur together.
We both cried. It handles the occupation honestly without ever being gratuitous, and Lucas's idea of bravery shifting over the course of the book is beautifully done.
A boy called petit éclair who saves kittens in occupied France — it sounds slight and it absolutely is not. Pennypacker writes children who understand more than the adults think they do. The stable scenes with Alice and the filly are extraordinary.