Captain Rosalie

Timothée de Fombelle and Isabelle Arsenault capture the heart-wrenching cost of war for one small girl in a delicately drawn, expertly told tale.

While her father is at war, five-year-old Rosalie is a captain on her own secret mission. She wears the disguise of a little girl and tracks her progress in a secret notebook. Some evenings, Rosalie’s mother reads aloud Father’s letters from the front lines, so that Rosalie knows he is thinking of her and looking forward to the end of the war and to finally coming home. But one day a letter comes that her mother doesn’t read to her, and Rosalie knows her mission must soon come to an end. Author Timothée de Fombelle reveals the true consequence of war through the experiences of small, determined Rosalie, while acclaimed artist Isabelle Arsenault illustrates Rosalie’s story in muted grays marked with soft spots of color — the orange flame of Rosalie’s hair, the pale pink of a scarf, the deep blue ink of her father’s letters. All the more captivating for the simplicity with which it is drawn and told, this quiet tale will stay with the reader long after its last page is turned.

Timothée de Fombelle is a French playwright and the author of many books, including Toby Alone, Toby and the Secrets of the Tree, Vango, A Prince Without a Kingdom, and The Book of Pearl. He lives with his family in Paris.

Isabelle Arsenault is the author-illustrator of Alpha and the illustrator of several other picture books, including the New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book Jane, the Fox, and Me by Fanny Britt and Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois by Amy Novesky. Isabelle Arsenault lives in Quebec.

Sam Gordon is a freelance translator based in London.