Eighteen-year-old Jeannot?named Raymond before he fled from the Nazis?and his younger brother, Claude, have found refuge in Toulouse, but freedom is a fleeting illusion in the south of France. Decrees are issued daily limiting the rights of foreigners, and Jews like Jeannot and Claude are still in danger.
Determined to fight the Germans and the Vichy collaborators, Jeannot seeks out the Resistance and joins the 35th Brigade, a band of young foreigners who have escaped arrest and now fight back with stolen weapons and the desperation of youth. In the Brigade, Jeannot finds friends, forbidden romance and even a kind of normalcy until tragedy and treachery strike, and everything he has built is torn apart.
Marc Levy is France’s #1 bestselling novelist, with more than 15 million copies of his seven books sold around the world. In The Children of Freedom, he has created a gut-wrenching portrait of young men and women forced to grow up too fast and denied their place in the country they love. Based on true stories of the Resistance, including the story of Levy’s own father, The Children of Freedom resurrects untold tales of the Second World War and gives them their rightful place in our narrative history.