Following the international success of his novels Le Voyage d’Hector, Hector et le secret de l’amour and Le Nouveau voyage d’Hector, François Lelord has become a full-time writer. As a psychiatrist, he is the author of L’Estime de soi and Comment gérer les personnalités difficiles.

A familiar character from François Lelord’s earlier novels, Hector the psychiatrist had previously abandoned his Parisian practice and embarked on a quest to discover the secrets of happiness and love that had taken him to China, the Golden Triangle and Greenland. Now back in Paris, he is married to his beloved Clara and the father of a small boy who never stops asking questions.
But, to quote from the novel: “Little Hector was not always happy, because life isn’t easy. Life, as his dad often said, is something you have to learn about. And the sooner you start learning the better. Little Hector had noticed that his dad often jotted down his thoughts in a little notebook that he always carried with him. So Little Hector decided that he too would write down all the lessons of life in a notebook and that one day he would show it to his mum and dad and they would be proud of him. And so we are now going to tell you how Little Hector learned about life.”
How should we deal with our worries? How can we look at the bright side of things? Friends or good grades: what should you choose? How to forgive others? What about money? And kindness? And girls? Through a series of short lessons we see how Little Hector grows up and learns to cope.


• In his amusing style, François Lelord continues the ordinary and amusing tales that have attracted hundreds of thousands of readers in France as well as worldwide, most notably in Germany and the U.K.

• “A marvel of solemn humour, blending philosophical pertinence with the art of the portrait.” Lire

• A new hero has been added to François Lelord’s tender and ironic universe.

• A family book to read out loud.