Julian FaceTimes his grandmother to ask her to tell her wartime childhood story for a school humanities project.

Sara describes her comfortable pre-war life with her surgeon father and university-professor mother in a French village.

Anti-Jewish laws cost Sara's mother her teaching job and ban the Blum family from entering public spaces.

An older student named Vincent mocks Sara at school, calling her a good artist for a Jew.

Nazis arrive at Sara's school; director Pastor Luc organizes a secret escape for the Jewish children with a resistance fighter.

Vincent shouts from a window to alert the Nazi soldiers about the Jewish children escaping into the woods.

The resistance fighter is shot dead by soldiers; the Jewish children are loaded onto a truck and taken away.

A classmate named Julien finds Sara hiding in the school belfry and leads her through the sewers to safety.

Sara dreams of her mother flying away to a faraway place and feels certain she will never see Maman again.

Julien retrieves Sara's sketchbook from the school director's office; Vincent follows him back to the barn to investigate.

Julien takes Sara outside for the first time in over a year to see the blooming bluebells; they confess their love and kiss.

Julien is arrested by officers on his way to school; Vincent finds Sara's sketchbook among Julien's scattered belongings on the street.

Sara escapes through the weakened barn roof as Vincent chases and shoots at her through the trees.

A wolf emerges from the forest and attacks and kills Vincent before disappearing back into the trees.

Sara reunites with her father after the war ends and later names her son Julian in Julien's honor.

This pool follows the central arc of White Bird, opening with Julian's request to hear his grandmother's wartime story and moving into Sara Blum's life in Nazi-occupied France. It traces the escalating persecution of the Blum family and the pivotal day Nazis arrive at Sara's school, leading to her desperate escape with the boy she barely knew. Sara's months in hiding slowly deepen her bond with Julien, culminating in a confession of love amid the blooming bluebells of the Mernuit forest. Julien's sudden arrest and Vincent's violent pursuit force Sara into a chase through the woods that ends with a wolf delivering a final reckoning. The pool closes with Julien's death, Sara's reunion with her father, and her lasting tribute to the boy who gave his life to save hers.

The headline events of Sara's wartime survival story.

Grandmère tells Julian that people are defined not by their mistakes but by what they do after learning from them.

Sara and her parents picnic in the bluebell-filled forest each spring; Papa plays a flying game with her.

Papa's sister in the Occupied Zone disappears after a mass roundup of Jews in Paris; the family never hears from her again.

Julien picks up Sara's dropped sketchbook in the math classroom and returns it to her, their first real conversation.

Sara's parents argue about leaving France; Maman insists the danger will pass and refuses to uproot the family.

Sara hides alone in the school belfry instead of escaping with the resistance fighter, unwilling to ruin her red shoes in the snow.

Math teacher Mademoiselle Petitjean insists on joining the arrested Jewish children onto the Nazi truck, knowing the fate that awaits her.

The Beaumier family arrives at the barn with food and warm clothes; Vivienne holds Sara as she breaks down crying.

Vivienne visits Sara in the barn every day, taking a long circuitous route through town and forest to avoid suspicion.

Julien sneaks to the barn at night; he and Sara play in an old car parked inside and discuss school gossip.

Vincent and his friends beat Julien in the barn while Sara watches hidden and helpless in the hayloft above.

Julien lashes out at Sara after the barn incident, calling her selfish and self-absorbed for not understanding the danger she put his family in.

The Beaumiers secretly celebrate Sara's birthday in the barn with a chocolate cake Vivienne spent months rationing ingredients to bake.

Vivienne and Monsieur Lafleur use borrowed savings to bribe the guards hoping to free Julien, but arrive too late.

After ending her call with Julian, Grandmère opens a small casket and retrieves the wooden bird Julien once whittled for Sara.

This pool highlights the secondary scenes and supporting cast whose actions and kindnesses shape Sara's story just as profoundly as the headline events. It begins with Grandmère's present-day wisdom and moves into the idyllic details of Sara's pre-war life, including spring picnics with her parents and Julien's first small act of returning her dropped sketchbook. Characters like Mademoiselle Petitjean and Vivienne Beaumier take center stage, demonstrating that courage and kindness can be both loud and quietly daily. The emotional aftermath of Vincent's attack on Julien—including the falling-out and reconciliation between Sara and Julien—reveals the fragility and growing strength of their bond. The pool follows Sara through her hidden birthday celebration and the desperate, failed attempt to rescue Julien, closing with a quiet but devastating epilogue image of Grandmère holding the bird he once whittled for her.

The quieter moments and supporting characters that give the story its emotional depth.

Grandmère agrees to tell Julian her wartime story despite how difficult it is, wanting younger generations to understand what happened.

France surrenders to Germany; swastika flags begin appearing in increasing numbers throughout Sara's village.

Sara's father urges her to wear winter boots to school for safety; Sara breaks the promise and wears her red shoes instead.

Sara asks her rescuer his real name as he shelters her in the barn; he tells her it is Julien.

Sara's mother is escorted from her home by officers, put on a train to Drancy, and then transported to Auschwitz, where she dies.

The Beaumiers' plan to smuggle Sara to Switzerland fails after the Nazis establish a new headquarters in Dannevilliers.

Sara tells Julien about the flying game she used to play with her father; Julien tells her he knows in his heart Papa is still alive.

Julien shouts Vive L'Humanité to distract Vincent during the barn attack; bats swarm down from the rafters and drive the attackers away.

Julien tells Sara it does not matter how she used to be but only how she is now; the two fully reconcile their friendship.

Vincent joins the pro-Nazi Milice militia; Pastor Luc joins the French Resistance and is rumored to have become a maquisard.

Sara pours her deepest hopes and her confession of love for Julien into her sketchbook and gives it to him before he leaves.

Sara discovers Rabbi Bernstein's family hiding in the Lafleurs' attic, revealing that the Lafleurs are secret Jewish allies and not Nazi sympathizers.

Julien is shot dead by Nazi guards as prisoners attempt to flee through the woods; the Beaumiers' last-minute rescue attempt fails.

Papa sends Sara a telegram after the war ends; she learns he survived in hiding and escaped to Switzerland with the help of the Resistance.

Grandmère reads distressing headlines about refugees and rising hatred; Julian marches in a New York protest holding a Never Again banner.

This pool focuses on the pivotal moments of decision, revelation, and consequence that drive White Bird's emotional engine. It opens with Grandmère's resolve to share her painful history and traces the early choices that set Sara's fate in motion, from a broken promise about shoes to the moment she learns her rescuer's true name. The fate of Sara's mother, the collapse of the escape plan to Switzerland, and the slow deepening of trust between Sara and Julien mark the turning points of her time in hiding. Moments of bravery—Julien's defiant shout in the barn, and Sara's eventual recognition of her own selfishness—shift the emotional course of the story before Julien's arrest, the shocking truth about the Lafleurs, and Julien's death bring the wartime arc to its devastating close. The pool ends on a note of fragile hope: a father's telegram, a daughter's survival, and a grandson carrying the story's legacy forward in the streets of New York.

The key decisions, discoveries, and revelations that changed the course of everything.