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Les Livres français au English Book Room!

Comme Bill & Rosa's English Book Room est en France nous mettons en avant de temps en temps des livres qui nous plaisent en français. On a déjà vu le stéreotype des Français avec les chiens, French Poodles, entre autres. Il va de soit qu'il y a un pléthore de livres pour enfant avec des chiens comme caractère principal. Voici notre choix de quatre [livres] chiens qui [pour]suivent un [livre] écureuil! LUCKY JOEY Joey l’écureuil vit avec sa famille dans un grand parc à New York. Rapide et agile, il aime son travail malgré les risques. Joey est laveur de vitres ! Du haut des immeubles, Joey rêve de voyages et de mariage avec Léna, son amoureuse. Tous les deux travaillent dur pour que leur rêve devienne réalité. Se laisseront-ils rattraper par les aléas de la vie ou la chance de Lucky Joey finira-t-elle par tourner ? Album 6 à 8 ans. Author: Carl Norac & Stéphane Poulin, Publisher: Les Lutins, L’école des loisirs JOBS DE WOUF Saviez-vous qu’il existe des chiens…

French Entrepreneur Families

French entrepreneur families

Some of the most famous brands in France were initially and often still are family businesses. A few even headed by women! Meet six historic French entrepreneur families starting with Chaumet the creator of the 2024 Paris Olympics Medals.

Chaumet

Marie-Etienne Nitot was an 18th century creator. He started near the top apprenticing to Marie-Antoinette's personal jeweller. In 1780 he founded his own maison. He survived the trauma of the Revolution to thrive under Napoleon who had an ambition to re-make France a center for luxury and fashion. Beginning with Napoleon's coronation sword Nitot became an important creator for the Empire and one of the most sought after jewellers in Europe. His son took the reins in 1812 and set up on Place Vendome. Joseph Chaumet became the director in 1885. His signature in the time of the belle epoque was nature-inspired aigrettes and tiaras which were social symbols. Tiaras morph…

Essential France: Objects

In nearly every French household you’ll find these essential France items... La Clé FACOM 1918. In a noisy workshop near the Gare de Lyon in Paris was born a small adjustable hand wrench under the code name “clé 101” or “Madame 101”. World War I changed the world and firmly established the presence of machines – which need repair. The perfect tool is the adjustable wrench by Facom which becomes indispensable for home and professional repairs and la société Franco-Américaine de Construction d'Outillage Mécanique, truncated as the French love to do, to “Facom”, becomes the leading brand of hand tools in Europe. (There is nothing American about it but the Franco-American name was a bit of marketing genius referring to the US troops during the war who were well equipped with the latest technological advancements.) Le 101 was manufactured until 1961 and is now a useful collector's item and the brand Facom is a worldwide (except in the Americas!!) success. BI…

Sacagawea and other AMAZING Female World TRAVELERS

Sacagawea was the Shoshone woman who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their journey to the Pacific. She and her husband Toussaint Charbonneau (French-Canadian) were hired as guides and interpreters. Sacagawea was particularly important to the Corps of Discovery in that she knew the terrain, the native plants as foods and medicines and she knew the Shoshones who provided horses to cross the mountains. You could say they expedition might have failed if not for Sacagawea. Today she is honored on a one dollar coin and her name graces many natural features in the Rocky Mountains. We never thought we'd come across Sacagawea's name in Boulogne-Billancourt! But she has been selected as part of an exhibition on women travellers called ÉTONNANTES VOYAGEUSES AUTOUR DU MONDE honored for International Women's Day. For a long time, the woman who traveled alone was considered an “adventurer”, in the sense of spy and courtesan. Despite social pressure, many have managed to overcome the pr…

The Reluctant Soldier, Black History Month

The Journey of The Reluctant Soldier In 2018 I was working as a writer and editor in New York when I was contacted by author Mark Perlman. He had written an historical novel that had taken him years to research and included several trips to France. Mark wanted the book edited before submitting it to agents. He drove from his home in Connecticut to meet me at a local restaurant near my house about an hour north of the city. We connected and I signed an agreement to edit Mark’s manuscript. It took a few years and several rewrites before Castles of Corn was ready to seek representation. When that time came, what Mark and I discovered in seeking an agent or publisher took us both by surprise. But first let me tell you a bit about the storyline. The Reluctant Soldier blends historical facts and characters with fictional ones. The story takes place in both France and the United States. Its themes of segregation, historical incidents, tragedies, and personal triumphs will reso…

The Hardy Boys, now in French

The Hardy Boys The Hardy Boys is a series of mystery books for teenagers and children, that debuted in 1927 and was created by American writer Edward Stratemeyer. Teenage brothers Frank and Joe Hardy are amateur sleuths who solve mysteries that stump adults. They live in a Northeastern state, have a car, a motorcycle, a boat and seemingly unlimited funds for their many adventures. They were trained in solving crimes by their father, Fenton, an ex-NYPD officer and are accompanied on their adventures by Chet Morton. The original series continued until 2005 and sold over 70 million copies worldwide, but it was never translated into French until now. Creation The creator of the series, Edward Stratemeyer was a prolific writer (he wrote about 1,300 books) with a nose for business. He came up with an ingenious business model for a literary syndicate that hired a network of freelance ghostwriters, who wrote novels for a small flat fee, following the detailed outline of the plot…

Giving Up U.S. Citizenship: Why and How

Giving Up U.S. Citizenship: Why and How There are many reasons why someone may want to give up their US citizenship. One of them is taxation. 1040 Abroad is here to explain the reasons people give up U.S. citizenship and how to do it. According to the Department of State, 6,705 Americans gave up their citizenship in 2020 alone. Compared to the 2,577 people who gave up their US citizenship in 2019, that number has increased by 260%. The renunciation of citizenship is a means of giving up citizenship that takes effect on the date of the interview at the U.S. consulate. A person who gives up U.S. citizenship will lose many benefits in the U.S., including voting rights, protection from foreign governments, and the ability to pass U.S. citizenship to their children. The main benefit of U.S. citizenship is still the right to live and work in the United States as desired. As a result, people who renounce U.S. citizenship tend to have established lives in their host country. Wh…

Hints and Hindsights – FFFFFF. F to the sixth power.

Hints and Hindsights. FFFFFF. F to the sixth power.

The six Fs. Fascinating, Fun Facts and Figures about France and French.

They come in handy more often than you’d think: during lulls in parties, as intros or outros to speeches, when you need to prove to some arrogant twit that at least some foreigners know there’s a world beyond Main Street and a timeline that precedes 1776. But let’s not get too arrogant ourselves - even for the most cultivated among us, some of these are real jaw-droppers:

-> When was the last guillotining in France? No, it was not during the 1793 Reign of Terror. It took place in Marseille on September 10, 1977 (that’s nineteen seventy-seven!) to end the life of Tunisian immigrant Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of having tortured and murdered his 21-year-old his former girlfriend, Elisabeth Bousquet. (France abolished the death penalty in 1981.)…

Ground Hog Day – Candlemas – Le Chandeleur

It's Ground Hog Day again! I get such a kick out of this day - it just makes me laugh and yet its origins are ancient and no joke - so that I want to share its background with you, dear reader, once again. --Lisa Selon le dicton écossais: If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, There'll be two winters in the year. La version anglaise: If Candlemas be fair and bright, Come, Winter, have another flight; If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, Go Winter, and come not again. Quand un animal hibernant sort de son terrier le 2 février (Le Chandeleur - Candlemas Day) et le soleil brille l'animal aura peur de son ombre, rentra sous terre et l'hiver continuera encore six semaines. La marmotte d'amérique est devenue aux Etats-Unis le météorologue le plus suivi pour ses prévisions de l'arrivée du printemps. Le plus célèbre des marmottes est Punxsutawney Phil, qui fait son entrée chaque année depuis 1887 à Punxsutawney, un village de Pennsylvanie. Toute la semaine du 2 février…

French Elephants

France loves elephants. What? French Elephants? Even though and maybe because they are not native to France it seems there has been a fascination with elephants throughout French history. When you begin to look around you find there are quite a few more or less famous French elephants. Some are of course imaginary, others constructed of wood and still others are live ones in zoos or sanctuaries. Let's have a tour of France's beloved elephants through the ages. Early history Cave painting attest to mammoths, but Hannibal's elephants were likely the first true elephants in Gaul, but they didn't fare so well. The next importation wasn't for quite a few years. The French Kings' Elephants over 900 years 768 to 1668 Many French kings kept elephants at court and by the Renaissance they were quite in vogue. Charlemagne's was named Abul-Abbas and was an Asian elephant brought from Baghdad by a diplomat in about 802. The gift was from the Abbasid caliph and symbolizes the beginni…

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