Sébastien lives with his adopted grandfather, sister, and brother, as his mother, a Romani, died after giving birth to him while trying to cross the border on Saint Sebastian's day.

The novel itself spawned a Japanese anime adaptation in 1981, a French motion picture in 2013, followed by two sequels in 2015 and 2017 (Belle and Sebastian: Friends for Life), and a French-Canadian co-produced TV series in 2017.

The BBC dubbed it into English, and anglicized the title to "Belle and Sebastian", and it became a favourite on children's television, shown a few times.

[7] In 2013 the novel was filmed again by director Nicolas Vanier (original title: Belle et Sébastien) targeting a family audience, but placing it at the French–Swiss border Haute-Maurienne–Vanoise in 1943 and adding a storyline about fugitives crossing the mountains to the child-friendly boy-befriends-dog story.

A sequel to the 2013 film (original title: Belle et Sébastien: l'aventure continue), set in 1945 and directed by Canadian director Christian Duguay, was released on December 9, 2015.