Sparrow: The Story of Joan of Arc

Sparrow: The Story of Joan of Arc
Michael Morpurgo

Eloise has always loved Joan of Arc. Noble, honest and brave, she was everything Eloise wishes to be. And on a bright sunny day in Orleans, Eloise has a very special daydream…A superb re-imagining of Joan of Arc by master storyteller and author of War Horse.“There was only one creature on this earth who really knew Joan. He was a sparrow, just an ordinary sparrow…He was her best friend on this earth, maybe her only friend, too.”A young girl faces an impossible task – to save her beloved France from tyrants. To free her country, Joan will lose everyone she has ever loved. But she listens to her heart and believes in her calling.Through patience, perseverance and unbreakable spirit, Joan of Arc leads armies to victory and finds the strength to face the cruellest of destinies.

Copyright

HarperCollins Children’s Books

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published as Joan of Arc in Great Britain in paperback by Pavilion Books,

London House, Great Eastern Wharf, London SW11 4NQ in 1998

Published in 2001 by Hodder Children’s Books, a division of Hodder Headline

Limited, 338 Euston Road, London, NW1 3BH

This edition published as Sparrow – the story of Joan of Arc by HarperCollins

Children’s Books in 2012

SPARROW. Copyright © Michael Morpurgo 1998.

Michael Morpurgo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

SOURCE ISBN: 9780007465958

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2012 ISBN: 9780007465965

Version: 2017-11-02

Dedication

For Christine Baker

Contents

Cover (#u0d9ffbfc-57be-5889-92a0-b6552b883ef5)

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1: One Joan a Year

Chapter 2: Voices in the Garden

Chapter 3: For France

Chapter 4: What is it About that Girl?

Chapter 5: We Need a Miracle

Chapter 6: Go Godoms, in God’s Name, Go!

Chapter 7: Joan the Miraculous, Joan the Invincible

Chapter 8: Alone in the Wilderness

Chapter 9: Trial and Tribulation

Chapter 10: Where Shall I be Tonight?

Chapter 11: The Sparrow and the Saint

Author’s Note

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other Books by Michael Morpurgo

About the Publisher

To begin with it was the picture. It was the picture that made it all happen – I am quite sure of it.

In the house where I grew up, in our old house in Montpellier, the picture always hung at the top of the stairs. Every time I went up to bed at night, there she’d be – Joan of Arc in her shining armour, holding her standard, with a shaft of light falling across her uplifted face. I would often gaze up at her and yearn to be serene and strong, just as she was. I wanted to have the same visionary, faraway look in my eyes, and the same hairstyle too.

But I learned very early on that my father did not share my enthusiasm. He disliked the picture intensely, about as intensely as my mother loved it. Apparently it had hung in her house when she was a child. But I didn’t like it just because my mother did. I had my own reasons, reasons I always kept to myself – until now.

My name is Eloise Hardy. I was seventeen last May. Something extraordinary has just happened to me, something so extraordinary that I feel I have to write it down. I want to remember all of it as it really happened, every moment of it, every word of it. Maybe, in the remembering of it, in the writing of it, I will begin to understand it better. I hope so.