Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo’s family, interests and early fame, in a long bilingual read

The store has two Hugo books for children. The 47-page The Story of Victor Marie Hugo covers his whole life briefly. Victor Hugo takes 124 pages and spends them on the person: a boy who loved the sea and the outdoors, who was about nine when the family went to live with his father in Madrid, and whose parents later separated.

There are also chapters on his curiosity about ghost stories and séances and his love of the new art of photography, with photographers visiting him at Hauteville House on Guernsey. Chapters open with a quotation, and the book includes a short rhyming poem about friendship. Each passage comes in English and Persian on the same page.

At a glance

What the book covers

Chapters such as “A Poet is Born” and “Growing Up in France and Spain” follow his early years closely.

From “A Poet is Born”

A line from his childhood, with the book’s English from the same page:

Reading it together

1. Treat it as a chapter book: one chapter per sitting over two or three weeks.
2. Read the Persian paragraph aloud, then let your child check the English printed above it.
3. After the poetry chapter, write a four-line poem together, first in English and then in Persian.
4. Share a few lines of classic Persian verse from the free Persian poetry pages.

Who this book is for

Use it with

• The Story of Napoleon Bonapart: another long biography set in France.
• The Story of Alexandre Dumas: another French writer in the series.

Common questions