Richie’s Picks: THE LIONS’ RUN
Richie Partington
Richie’s Picks: THE LIONS’ RUN by Sara Pennypacker, Macmillan/Balzer and Bray, February 2026, 288p., ISBN: 978-1-250-39281-7
“Such a long, long time to be gone
And a short time to be there.”
– Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter (1970)
“I ain’t a-marching anymore”
– Phil Ochs (1965)
“‘No more war. Do you think that’s actually possible? I mean no more war, not just this one over.’
Lucas waited. Alice was thinking about something.
‘My grandfather…,’ she started after a minute. And then she paused again.
‘Your grandfather?’ Lucas prompted. ‘The one with the American friend in the Great War?’
She nodded and put down the blinders. ‘Once, when I was young, I was playing with my toy horses, pretending they were in a battle. That upset him. He put down his paper, took my hand, and walked me into our village center. He didn’t say a single word the whole way. He led me into the pub and pointed up to the ceiling. There, I saw silver coins nailed to the beams.’
‘What were they doing there?’
‘That’s what I asked him.’ Alice came over and sat beside Lucas on the hay bale. She stroked Felix’s forehead softly. ‘He told me that in the Great War, all the young men in our village were called up to serve. The night before they were to leave, they went to this pub together. At the end of the night, they all nailed silver florins to the beams, vowing that after the war, they’d meet back in the pub and take those coins down and buy each other drinks, to…’ She took a breath. ‘To celebrate.’
Lucas was silent. Alice’s voice had cracked on the word celebrate.’
‘My grandfather was squeezing my hand so tightly. He’d gone to the pub with those boys. They’d invited him, even though he was the village squire, because he’d signed up to serve, too. He made me look at the ceiling again and said, ‘Look harder.’
‘This time I noticed some nail holes among the coins. My grandfather pointed to one. ‘Thomas Thackery, the town farrier,’ he said. ‘He made it back, took his coin down.’ He pointed to the coin beside the nail hole. ‘Rupert, his brother, a blacksmith. He didn’t make it home.
‘My grandfather knew every nail hole, every coin. There were more coins than holes. I was crying by then, but my grandfather went on and on, boys who came back, boys who didn’t, all of them parts of our village. Including himself.’
Alice threw herself back onto the hay, looked up at the stable beams as if she were seeing those silver coins. ‘That war my grandfather was in, the Great War, well it wasn’t so great. And they called it “The war to end wars,” but here we are again. Here we’ll always be.’
‘Maybe not. Maybe one day we’ll learn.’ Lucas couldn’t believe it was him saying those words. But he had just realized that hope was a job, and somebody had to do it, and today that somebody was him.”
Lucas Dubois is a tween orphan who has been raised since infanthood in the abbey of a now-Nazi-occupied village in France. In a sense, the lack of family ties make him a bit of an outsider. But his chores include daily deliveries around the village, so he gets to see and hear a lot of what is going on.
If you have not previously heard or read about THE LIONS’ RUN, you are likely to in the coming months. It is a thrilling piece of WWII/Holocaust historical fiction for all ages. It serves as a powerful piece of ant-iwar literature. Set in 1944, it is a must-have for all collections serving children and tweens. There are aspects of the story, relating to the Nazis, that will be new and enlightening/horrifying even to many adult readers.
But, for me, the reason why THE LIONS’ RUN is THE book of 2026, has nothing to do with its relationship to Trump’s current war-of-choice, although that is certainly a valuable bonus.
For me, the genius of this story involves the decision-making and action-taking exhibited by the tween orphan. It involves the eternal question of, what is/what makes a hero? That is what we find at the core of this brilliantly-developed, unforgettable, coming-of-age tale,
In order to avoid spoiling any of the excitement, I need to dance around the specific decisions and actions Lucas takes. Trust me. This is one that’ll you can’t miss, one that’ll keep you reading past your bedtime. Know that you’ll want to savor every page of this gem, one that I guarantee is going to win awards at the end of the year.
My point is that the story contains powerful lessons of morality for young readers, life lessons that are applicable to any reader’s current and future development and decision-making experiences. My hope is that the story encourages many readers to put themselves in Lucas’ place. Then, based upon the readers’ own teachings and experience, what would they do if they were in the main character’s shoes? What is their gut reaction? How does it compare to what Lucas does?
It’s all still going round and round in my head: Could I have had the guts to…
Man, oh man. Don’t miss THE LIONS’ RUN!
Richie Partington, MLIS
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