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Live Session Dates

Un Sac De BILLES

The French Room
Cinema and Book Club March - May 2027

Un sac de billes. 
Joseph Joffo's beloved memoir of two Jewish brothers crossing occupied France alone as children. Humane, gripping, and written with the clarity and warmth that has made it one of the most read books in French schools for fifty years.

Live discussions with Ellie · Starts March 2027 · More titles announced for summer 2027
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About this title

The book and the film

  • Published in 1973 and translated into eighteen languages, Un sac de billes has never been out of print. Joseph Joffo wrote it so that his children would understand what his family had lived through — and the result is one of the most remarkable documents of occupied France ever written.

  • The story begins in Paris in 1941. Joffo was ten years old when his father gave him and his twelve-year-old brother Maurice a handful of francs and told them to make their way south alone, across the demarcation line, to reach their older brothers in the unoccupied zone. The book follows that journey — and everything that came after.

  • What makes it exceptional is its voice. Joffo writes as the child he was — curious, resourceful, sometimes terrified, often funny. The horror of the period is present throughout, but the book is above all a celebration of life, of kindness, and of survival.

An significant part of french history

Why this choice?

  • The French is clear, immediate, and completely accessible. Joffo writes in the voice of a child — direct, unadorned, honest. It is one of the most readable books in French at any level, which makes it ideal for sustained reading over three months.

  • It covers a period of French history that still resonates deeply. The occupation, collaboration, survival, and what it meant to be Jewish in wartime France — these are subjects the French continue to reckon with. The book places you inside that history with extraordinary intimacy.

  • It is also genuinely funny. Joffo's wit and the boys' resourcefulness give the book a quality that sets it apart from most war memoirs. The laughter makes the darker moments land all the harder.

  • It is a journey through France itself. The brothers travel from Paris through Dax, across the demarcation line, and into the south. Reading it is also a geographical and cultural tour of the country in a moment of crisis.

  • It leaves you wanting more — which is exactly the point. Un sac de billes is a book that stays with you long after the last page. And when the cycle ends in May, the club simply keeps going.

  • New titles are announced each season, chosen with the same care. There is always another French story worth spending time inside.
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"The fact that Joffo manages to make this book so human and so funny is what makes it stand out. There are plentiful books about the occupation, but Un sac de billes has lessons to impart beyond the historical"

Adventures on the Bookshelf  - Oxford

What to expect

How the cycle works

Each month Ellie hosts a live discussion inside The French Room. We explore the language, the humour, the cultural references, and what the film reveals about France and the French.

You watch at your own pace — there is no test, no homework, no pressure to have understood every word.

The cycle runs for three months. That is time enough to watch the film more than once and to read the book, to notice things you missed, and to let the language become genuinely familiar.

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The club continues after this cycle. New titles for summer 2027 and beyond are announced each season — members simply carry on.

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