and make many friends, until one day when they accompany the lorry driver Ferdinand into Nice where he leads them, unintentionally, straight into a Nazi trap. They are taken to the "Hotel Excelsior", the Nazi headquarters in the region. Fortunately, due to their carefully thought up lies and the persistence of a priest, they escape a month later, still alive but pretty rattled. Sadly, they soon learn of the arrest of their father, who had his papers with him at the time, which means it is no longer safe for the two youngsters to remain in Nice. As the autumn turns to winter, Joseph and Maurice travel north to see their sister, where they learn that it is unsafe for them to stay; so they go to join their brothers in the Alpine resort of Aix-les-Bains. Here Maurice spends the rest of the war working in a bakery, and Joseph works for the owner of the village bookshop - a staunch Petainist. The two brothers also brush up with resistance fighters in the area, when Joseph has to pass on a secret message. Joseph returns to Paris shortly after peace is announced, in an over-crowded train. Maurice returns by road, although in his typical style he also takes enough cheese to make a very large profit on! They are both re-united with their family in the salonalthough sadly not their father, who was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp before the end of the war. Films and graphic novel A 1975 film adaptation of the novel was directed by Jacques Doillon. This was followed by a 2017 film adaptation directed by Christian Duguay. A 2012 graphic novel adaptation by Kris and Vincent Bailly was nominated in the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards as Best Reality-Based Work. References External links A Bag of Marbles at Rotten Tomatoes 1973 French novels French autobiographical novels Novels set during World War II French novels adapted into films