Twenty and Ten

Twenty and Ten is a children's novel by the writer Claire Huchet Bishop, first published in 1952. It is set in France during the Second World War and is based on an account of what children actually did.

The book begins with twenty pupils at a school in the countryside, living through an occupation that has bent ordinary life out of shape. When they are asked whether they will help to hide ten Jewish children, they say yes, and the story follows the arrangement that results: the newcomers indoors and outdoors, the small rules and games that keep the household running, and the ordinary loyalty of children who have agreed to keep a secret. Then German soldiers arrive and begin asking questions, and the safety of the hidden children depends on how the twenty hold up under questioning rather than on anything adults can do for them.

Written for a young readership in the years immediately after the war, the novel has been read and taught ever since as a short account of what courage looked like in an occupied country.