Valentina

In 1939 in a French prison camp José Garcés of the defeated Spanish Republican army raises the spirits of his fellow prisoners by telling the story of the year he was 8 years old 1911 in a small town in northeastern Spain He was a rascal baffling his father always in trouble and in love with Valentina a neighbor girl On his roof top at night he sends semaphore messages to her He writes poems He gets them into trouble killing her fathers breeding pigeons When the two families camp at a decaying castle his tutor a sympathetic priest tells him about the most valiant men the saints the heroes and the poets Already a poet he learns a lesson about being a hero