We Are the Beasts

Gr 9 Up–In the process of recovering a lost lamb, the intrepid and self-sufficient shepherdesses Joséphine and Clara stumble across the body of a young boy, who seems to have been killed by the terrifying and legendary beast plaguing their part of the French countryside. The boy’s sister, Charlotte, still miraculously alive, is afraid to return to her brute of a father, regardless of the beast’s presence; unable to bring themselves to doom Charlotte to more abuse, Joséphine and Clara decide to fake her death. That sets off a chain of events that puts them in the crosshairs of multiple enemies if they are caught—the priest blaming the beast’s attacks on their sins, the misogynistic and violent townsmen, the skilled and dangerous beast-hunters sent by the king, and the bloodthirsty beast himself, to say nothing of the cold and the threat of starvation. A witty, personable voice brings a modern sensibility to defiant historical girls who refuse to be made anyone’s fools in a tale based on the real French legend of the Beast of Gévaudan.