Hello.

 Captain Rosalie

by Timothee de Fombelle
illustration by Isabelle Arsenault

Fombelle’s touching tale of five-year-old Rosalie, in 1917 France, follows her to and from her classroom where she hides in the back with a notebook and her secret mission. For she is “Captain Rosalie” and believes she has an important role in the war being fought by her father far away. Her mission finally succeeds, when she can read the letters her mother has been “reading” to her, and now she must learn a painful truth. This tender story is enhanced by Arsenault’s atmospheric illustrations of monochromatic hues with the sparks of red.