Plot summary

January, 1944 in Nazi-occupied France. From their Paris home, preteen Julien Quentin and his older, teenaged brother François Quentin have just returned to the all-boys boarding school at St. Jean de la Croix - a Carmelite convent - following the Christmas break. Outwardly, they are sent to boarding school because of the war, which is not to say that they may have been sent there regardless by their overbearing mother and absentee father, who they have not seen in two years as he works in Lille. Julien, generally looked up to by his classmates and respected by his teachers, likes to appear tough to his classmates, while in reality he is closer to being a scared little boy, a side of himself he is not afraid to show to his mother. A manifestation of the child side of himself is that he still occasionally wets his bed, something he hides in cleaning up before others awaken. The direct day-to-day issues of the war generally do not enter the school, and as such the boys are generally able to act like boys: they roughhouse (largely under the supervision of the teachers), and take advantage of getting care packages from home - which they are supposed to share in the Christian spirit - to trade with Joseph, an older boy who works in the kitchen, for things they really want, such as cigarettes. This term, three new boys enter the school, one, Jean Bonnet, who is the same age as Julien and as such is assigned to Julien's class. Jean is Protestant and is therefore exempt from many of the Catholic rituals of the convent, such as communion. Beyond his name being easy to ridicule ("Easter bonnet"), Jean is treated as an outsider by his classmates due to his reserved nature. However, Julien slowly begins to see in Jean aspects of himself, that familiarity which eventually blossoms into a friendship between the two boys. That friendship is strengthened when Julien learns the secret reason behind Jean being at the school. This term will also show Julien what the Nazi persecution means to general French life, events at the school which will be part of him for the rest of his life.—Huggo