France

Materials from France

Wild Boy: The Real Life of the Savage of Aveyron

One day in 1798, woodsmen in southern France returned from the forest having captured a naked boy. He had been running wild, digging for food, and was covered with scars. In the village square, people gathered around, gaping and jabbering in words the boy didn’t understand. And so began the curious public life of the boy known as the Savage of Aveyron, whose journey took him all the way to Paris. Though the wild boy’s world was forever changed, some things stayed the same: sometimes, when the mountain winds blew, “he looked up at the sky, made sounds deep in his throat, and gave great bursts of laughter.” In a moving work of narrative nonfiction, Mary Losure invests a compelling story from history with vivid and arresting new life.

I Love to Sleep/J’aime dormir/Me encanta dormir

This delightfully interactive, adorably illustrated board book is designed with a dozen textures for tiny fingers to explore. Babies will discover words like bib, cereal and high chair–all the necessary components for a successful breakfast. Each object is named in English, Spanish and French.

Colorful Dreamer

An inspiring portrait of one of the world’s most loved artists. There was once a boy named Henri, whose dreams were full of color even though his hometown was dreary and gray. His parents expected him to learn a trade when he grew up, but being a law clerk bored him, and he continued to dream of a colorful, exciting life, and of being noticed. Then Henri started painting and kept painting and dreaming and working at his craft until he’d become one of the most admired and famous artists in the world. This lyrical, visually rich picture book is more than an excellent biography; at its core, this remarkable book is an encouragement to never give up on your dreams.

The White Bicycle

The White Bicycle is the third stand-alone title in the Wild Orchid series about a young woman with Asperger’s Syndrome. This installment chronicles Taylor Jane’s travels to the south of France where she spends a summer babysitting for the Phoenix family. Including flashbacks into Taylor’s earliest memories, along with immediate scenes in Lourmarin, a picturesque village in the Luberon Valley, The White Bicycle results in a journey for independence both personal and universal, told in Taylor’s honest first-person prose.

Code Name Verity

In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage, and great courage as she relates what she must to survive while keeping secret all that she can.

Birds of a Feather

This lush, oversized book about birds features a variety of interactive guessing games and special features, including more than 40 lift-the-flaps and more than 15 pop-ups, plus intriguing facts about each bird, providing readers with hours of educational entertainment. With elegant, graphic illustrations, Birds of a Feather is a feast for the eyes as well as the mind.

A Book of Tormod: A Templar’s Destiny

The Chosen, Tormod, aided by Aine and Bertrand, returns to France seeking other Gifted members of the Templar Order and striving to recover the relics he is bound to protect, while also hoping to find and rescue his brother, Torquil.

The Unfortunate Son

Luc, a youth born with one ear and raised by a drunken father in fifteenth-century France, finds a better home with fisherman Pons, his sister Mattie, and their ward Beatrice, the daughter of a disgraced knight, and even after being kidnapped and sold into slavery in Africa, he remains remarkably fortunate.