The Journey Francesca Sanna (Flying Eye Books) The Journey explores the very current and heart-wrenching theme of people fleeing their war-torn home in a way that is pitched perfectly at the intended audience. Using traditional fairy-tale imagery (folksy artwork, dark forests, ogre-like figures etc), Sanna creates a narrative which deals with a powerful theme while …
Faïza Guène (Definitions) Kiffe kiffe demain, translated by Sarah Adams Doria is fifteen, a beur (French of Arabic descent) living in a soulless high rise in suburban Paris. Painfully shy, struggling at school, obsessed by TV programmes, she lives alone with her illiterate mother after having both been abandoned by their violent good for nothing …
Today I am thrilled to welcome Marianne Dubuc for a French Friday/Fabulous Five mash-up, so to speak. Marianne is from Québec and is the author and illustrator of the internationally acclaimed The Lion and the Bird, published by Book Island and translated from French by translator extraordinaire Sarah Ardizzone. The Lion and the Bird tells the story of an unlikely …
Alain Serres (text) & Aurélia Fronti (illustrations)“J’ai le droit d’être un enfant”, translated by Sarah Ardizzone (Phoenix Yard Books) The Convention of the Rights of the Child was written in 1989 but the original text is barely accessible to those whom it concerns the most: children. Having rights is also not an easy concept for young …
Two picture books about Paris have really caught my eye this year. They are very different in their storyline, though the theme of journey is at the core of both, and both are esthetically wonderful. Henri’s Walk to ParisLeonore Klein (text) & Saul Bass (illustrations) (Universe) Henri lives in a small town, with all its tweeness, but …
Daniel Pennac with illustrations by Quentin Blake, translated by Sarah Ardizzone (née Adams) (Walker books) Parents, teachers, librarians,please on no account use these pages as an instrument of torture. These words of caution from the author at the very beginning of the book set the tone of one of my most favourite books. Daniel Pennac is a bestselling French …
Joann Sfar (original text by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)translated by Sarah Ardizzone(Walker Books) A pilot finds himself stranded in the desert after crash-landing his plane. While he desperately tries to fix the problem, a little boy appears out of nowhere. He is from a tiny faraway planet, where he lives with only three small volcanoes and …
