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Friday, July 13, 2012

Celebrate Bastille Day!

July 14th is Bastille Day, the French national holiday!  French patriots around the world recognize the day as the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 and a big step on their road to revolution.  The day is celebrated much like the United States celebrates the 4th of July, with fireworks and parades.  You may not be French or have a chance to fly to Paris this weekend to celebrate, but there are still plenty of ways to jump into Parisian life at home.  Here are a few books and movies to get your started!

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
An angry, grieving seventeen-year-old musician facing expulsion form her prestigious Brooklyn private school travels to Paris to complete a school assignment and uncovers a diary written during the French Revolution by a young actress attempting to help tortured, imprisoned little boy, Louis Charles, the lost king of France.






The Academie by Susanne Emily Dunlap
Eliza Monroe, daughter of the future president of the United States, is devastated when her mother decides to send her to boarding school outside of Paris.  But the young American teen is quickly reconciled to the idea when she discovers who her fellow pupils will be: Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Josephine Bonaparte, and Caroline Bonaparte, youngest sister of the famous French general.  It doesn't take long for Eliza to learn the two French girls are mortal enemies, and that she's about to get caught in the middle of their schemes.




Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
When Anna's romance novelist father sends her to an elite American boarding school in Paris for her senior year of high school, she reluctantly goes, and meets an amazing boy who becomes her best friend, in spite of the fact that they both want something more.







The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll & Mademoiselle Odile by James Reese
In the prequel to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde set in 1870s Paris during the Prussian siege, an orphaned sixteen-year-old girl whose knowledge of witchcraft includes transformation spells meets a young medical doctor from London.








Le Chevalier d'Eon vol. 1 by To Ubukata
A mysterious cult is sacrificing beautiful young women to demonic force that has promised them the kingdom of France in return for the blood of their victims.  Only one man can save Paris from chaos and terror, the Chevalier d'Eon.








No and Me by Delphine de Vigan
Precocious thirteen-year-old Lou meets a homeless eighteen-year-old girl on the streets of Paris and Lou's life is forever changed.








Movies