The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is the book selection for August. This is the story of the residents of a posh apartment building in Paris as told by a couple of quirky characters who live there. Renée Michel is the concierge who pretends to be simple, but who is in reality an intellectual autodidact. Paloma Josse is a 12 year old who belongs to one of the wealthy families who lives in the building.

 

Muriel Barbery is a philosophy professor. Her book is full of philosophical and literary references. It's hard to keep up at times. To brush up on philosophy, listen to Michael Sandel's lectures from Harvard in an online class called Justice. Episode 6 and 7 cover Kant.

 

Is Paloma's interest in philosophy a realistic or believable protrayal of a 12 year old child?  In fact, exposing children to philosophy is very popular in France.

 

And then there's the movie. It's not yet available in the United States but it looks good:

More on the book:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog on Wikipedia