Sara Pennypacker discusses ‘The Lions’ Run’ on our Best February Books episode.

This special episode of Fully Booked is dedicated to February’s most anticipated titles.

In our lead editors’ segment, Laurie Muchnick, John McMurtrie, Mahnaz Dar, and Laura Simeon share their top picks in books for the month. Then, I’m joined in conversation by Sara Pennypacker, author of The Lions’ Run(Balzer + Bray, Feb. 3), illustrated by Jon Klassen. As Kirkus writes in a starred review, “An orphan in occupied France during World War II finds his courage and a sense of family” in this “compassionate and complex” middle-grade historical fiction.

Pennypacker is the author of several acclaimed novels for middle-grade readers, including the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Pax (a National Book Award longlist title) and Pax, Journey Home; the series Clementine and Waylon!; and , Here in the Real World, and Leeva at Last. She divides her time between Cape Cod and Southern California.

Here’s a bit more from our starred review of The Lions’ Run: “Thirteen-year-old Lucas Dubois is a foundling who’s growing up in the abbey orphanage in the village of Lamorlaye. He has such a tender heart that the other boys call him ‘Petit Éclair.’ Lucas rescues a litter of kittens from being drowned on a nun’s orders and goes to hide them in one of the stables left empty in nearby Chantilly after their owners took their thoroughbreds and fled from the Nazis. But the stable is already in use—Alice, the teenage daughter of an English horse trainer, is protecting a racehorse from being commissioned for the war until she can be smuggled to Kentucky in a month’s time.…This immersive story is driven by Lucas’ emotional yearnings and the sometimes complicated relationships among the well-drawn characters, but history and the specific setting are accurate and carefully delineated, creating a strong sense of place.”

Pennypacker says that The Lions’ Run was inspired, in part, by thinking about injustice, and how kids feel about injustice, over the last decade. We talk about orphans and abbeys, 1940s France, whether Pennypacker has any “rules” for writing historical fiction, the difference between writing for young readers and adults, interspecies friendships, the brilliance of Klassen’s illustrations, and much more.

BEST BOOKS OF FEBRUARY 2026:

This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman (Dial Press)

A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness by Michael Pollan (Penguin Press)

Rumpelstiltskin, retoldby Mac Barnett, illus. by Carson Ellis (Orchard/Scholastic)

Few Blue Skies by Carolina Ixta (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins)

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Born Sick in the USA by Stephen Bezruchka (Cambridge Univ. Press)

Prey Before Bed by James Sackos

We Met at a Halloween Party by Marcus R. Ferrell

Karl Marx and the Lost California Manifesto by Scott D. Carlson

Peace Warrior by Greg Payton with J.T. Molloy 

Fully Booked is produced by Jessica Lockhart and Megan Labrise.