The Lions’ Run out now from Balzer + Bray; 288 pages
Content Warning: Child abuse, animal death, animal cruelty, eugenics
About the Author: “Sara Pennypacker is the author of several acclaimed novels for middle-grade readers, including The Lions’ Run; the #1 New York Times bestselling Pax (a National Book Award Longlist title) and Pax, Journey Home; the Clementine series (Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor) and its spinoff series, Waylon; and Summer of the Gypsy Moths, Here in the Real World, and Leeva at Last. She divides her time between Cape Cod and Southern California” (Bio from Bookshop.org).
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About the Illustrator: “Jon Klassen is a Canadian-born author-illustrator. He has written and illustrated the acclaimed Hat series, including I Want My Hat Back, This Is Not My Hat, and We Found a Hat. Highlights of his illustrated books are Cats’ Night Out by Caroline Stutson, Sam & Dave Dig A Hole by Mac Barnett, The Dark by Lemony Snicket, and The Wolf, The Duck & The Mouse also by Mac Barnett. His books have won a Caldecott medal and two Caldecott honors and other international awards. He lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and son” (Bio from Simon & Schuster).
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Lucas Dubois is an almost 14-year-old orphan boy living in Nazi-occupied Lamorlaye, France. The orphanage Lucas resides in can’t spare even a sliver of food when the rat-catching cat has kittens. The kittens are ordered to be killed and two other orphan boys go to fulfill the demand, intending to drown the kittens. They nearly succeed, but while Lucas attempts to save them they’re tossed into a river anyways. He manages to save 5 out of the 6 kittens, and finds an abandoned stable to keep them safe. However, the stable turns out to be not as uninhabited as he thought when he comes across Alice using the place to hide her precious horse Bia. Reluctant to trust each other and worried they’ll give the other away to the Nazis, their secret animals become the least of their concerns when Lucas entangles himself with the Resistance. Lucas will have to trust himself to know in the heat of the moment what the right thing to do is.
I love middle-grade novels that don’t shy away from serious and dark topics, and a novel set during World War II is expected to discuss these, but WOW I was not prepared for how stressed this book would make me feel. I was skeptical at first with Lucas’ characterization, depicted as a boy who was deemed soft by his peers and wanted to be brave but believed himself too cowardly. I was worried it would be too cliché. But I was pleasantly surprised by how attached I got to him, and I was both proud and nervous each time he made a bolder decision. My favorite part overall, however, was the stakes. Pennypacker really knows how to draw suspense and build up the intensity of a situation. What started as hiding kittens to keep them safe turned into Lucas hiding from an all-out manhunt for him after he stole something “precious” to the Nazis, and in just the last 40 pages of the book I was on the edge of my seat, unsure if it would end with everything crashing down. I wish the novel was a little longer, as the ending did utilize timeskips, but it ended on a bittersweet note so I am not that upset. If you want a mostly historically-accurate WWII novel, or if you enjoy characters gradually getting themselves into intense situations, The Lions’ Run is a must-read.
Grace McCool, Pine Reads Review Writer & Editor