If the above Peanuts strip makes no sense to you, then you need to read this Book of the Month.
Percival Christopher "P.C." Wren was an English author who penned the tale Beau Geste (French for a "gallant, hopelessly romantic gesture") in A.D. 1914. It is a double-layered mystery, crossed with an epic foreign adventure, crossed with a tale of harrowing survival; the sort of story that begged to be made into an early Hollywood star-studded film. It was, too--several times!
Our main characters are three faithful English brothers, the Gestes, who grow up under the care of a loving aunt, their school days filled with acting out tales of derring-do and knight-errantry. But when a priceless family heirloom goes missing, each decides, without consulting the others, to take the blame and run away to spare their aunt suspicion. Penniless and hungry for adventure, they all join the fabled French Foreign Legion (the only unit of the French Army foreign-born men could enlist in) and are sent off together into the sands of North Africa to fight a dirty little war. Eventually, the Arabs attack...and the rest is history.
Wren clearly had a great love for the boy's tales of his youth by better-known authors like Ballantyne, Henty, and Stevenson, and his code of conduct is modelled on their dashing depictions of cheery English pluck and gentlemanly morals. But his tale of life in the Legion, and the sort of war it wages, is far from glamourous. The hardness of a soldier's life, and the petty threads his life hangs by, are ever present. Indeed, his depiction is so realistic it has given rise to rumors that Wren himself served in the Legion at some point in his youth!
Any of your boys ten and up would love this tale, and it's available quite cheaply on Kindle and for free download here. Summer (and all that voracious reading time) is nearly upon us. Make sure they wind up more like Linus than Lucy, and enjoy the book!
