Romain Gary

This novel follows a young man's passion through the ravages of WWII. Ludo lives with his uncle, kite maker Ambrose Fleury, in the small town of Clery in the French countryside. Ludo, like everyone in the Fleury family, has an impressive "historical memory" that earns him the ire of his teachers and arguments with Lila, the mercurial, naive daughter of Polish aristocrats and the object of his affection, isn't as keen as Ludo to rehash the country's...