Who Was Napoleon?

Learn more about Napoleon Bonaparte, the decorated French military leader who conquered much of Europe in the early nineteenth century.

One day early in 1784, a heavy snowstorm covered the grounds of the military school for boys in Brienne, France. There was so much snow that the students couldn’t get their usual exercise after class. But fourteen-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte had an idea: snowball fight!
 
This being a military school, however, Napoleon wasn’t thinking about any ordinary snowball fight. Instead, he wanted the boys to put to use what they had been learning in the classroom. They built forts and dug trenches. On Napoleon’s orders, a snowball war began. It lasted two full weeks during the times that the boys weren’t in class. Some days, Napoleon commanded one side. Some days, he commanded the other.
 
The snowball war wasn’t entirely harmless. After a while, small rocks got mixed in with the hard ice. Those snowballs hurt! So the school put an end to it. Napoleon’s first “war” was over.
 
The teachers weren’t happy about their students getting hurt. But they were happy to see Napoleon take charge. Ever since he arrived at the school four years earlier, he had been moody and quiet. He didn’t have a lot of friends. But he seemed happy to lead the school’s snowball battles. 
 
Little did his teachers know that Napoleon would go on to become one of the most famous military commanders in the history of the world. He would lead hundreds of thousands of men into battle. And with a combination of courage and strategy, he won most of the battles he fought.
 
Napoleon went on to build a vast empire for France. At the height of his career, he ruled over more than seventy million people. To the French people, Napoleon was a good guy. To his enemies, he was not. Late in Napoleon’s life, those same enemies defeated him and sent him to live on a tiny island. There, he had plenty of time to talk about his memories.
 
“What a novel my life has been!” Napoleon exclaimed one day to the assistant who was writing it all down.
 
Napoleon’s life had it all: friends and enemies, politics and war, a love story, and so much more. And Napoleon himself—the main character—was famous, clever, and brave. But a novel is a made-up story. Napoleon lived it all for real.

1. Idade de leitura: 8 - 12 anos

2. 112 páginas

3. Idioma: Inglés

4. Nível de ensino: 3 - 7

5. Escala Lexile: 830L

6. Dimensões: 13.49 x 0.61 x 19.38 cm

7. Editor: Penguin Workshop

8. Data de publicação: 4 dezembro 2018

9. ISBN-10.  0448488604

10. ISBN-13.  978-0448488608