What happens when a family of lice keeps growing on a single head, until they invade almost every millimeter of every hair? When these little beasts can no longer jump from one child to another, confinement requires, and they all get stuck on their feet on Annette’s skull? This is the question that author and illustrator Orbie asked herself in her album The end of lice? (Les 400 coups), which today won the Montreal Libraries Children’s Book Prize.
Also in the running were the famous Truffleby Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault (La Pastèque), the very beautiful Who owns the clouds?by Mario Brassard and Gérard DuBois (La Pastèque), the dramatic Leonoreby Linda Amyot (Leméac), and the Bubble wrap, by Simon Boulerice and Ève Patenaude (XYZ), where red comes into its own. Five librarians specialized in children’s literature formed the jury. Of The end of lice?they liked “the comical situations” and the “jokes of all kinds, the thousand and one details in the illustrations which practically operate like a search and find”.
Each finalist book is associated with a $500 grant; the winner wins $5,000. The end of lice? is also a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Awards, children’s literature.
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