One might believe that Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, author of Forest woman (Leaf Merchant, 2021) and River woman (Marchand de Feuilles, 2022), and founder of the militant movement Mères au front, which denounces the inaction of leaders in the face of the climate threat, has always maintained a unique relationship with the territory.
However, it took a pandemic, and confinement of several months with her clan in the countryside, for her to understand that her knowledge of soils, forests and flora was almost illiterate. “I learned a lot during this year homeschooling my children,” says the writer, met in an Italian café in Montreal.
“Every day, we reinvented the classroom in the forest. Rather than doing math, we went out to pick plants. We learned to name what grew on the paths we traveled. Then, we became interested in their history and their properties. »
Faced with this incredible wealth, the idea of Our flowers — an illustrated guide primarily intended for young readers, but which will also delight and instruct older ones — germinated in the artist’s head.
Each flower has its story
By giving each species its own voice, the album transforms what grows in our forests, our undergrowth, our meadows and the gaps in our sidewalks into poetic and instructive journeys. In addition to highlighting the wisdom, resistance and richness of a world that too often escapes view, the book provides access to a multitude of imaginations and mythologies.
We learn that the burdock, whose flower heads covered with thorns cling to the hair of children and the coat of animals to move and thus ensure its survival, is the ancestor of Velcro. That the great mullein, this stem whose soft leaves were used as toilet paper by cowboys, becomes, once the flower stalk is dried and coated with fuel, an immense torch. And that yarrow, “the ambulance of the fields”, was used to bandage the wounds of Achilles during the Trojan War.
There we come across monks at the end of their lives, who climb a ladder of lily of the valley flowers leading them directly to paradise. There we encounter the pitcher plant, a mysterious carnivorous plant that grows in the peat bogs of Quebec. In the guise of a vampire, the immortelle, resistant to cold and darkness, forms a sublime winter bouquet.
To put these beauties into images, the author was able to count on the talent of the illustrator Mathilde Cinq-Mars, with whom she had already collaborated for the book Our heroines (Leaf Merchant, 2018). “The flowers that we chose were chosen, not according to the logic of botanists, but truly according to the logic of lovers. These are the flowers with which she and I have a special bond. My mother, when I was little, picked dandelions. She entered the house, glorious, with a bouquet of suns in her hand, to announce the end of winter. For her, it was the greatest miracle in the world. So, these stories that have marked our lives have also influenced our choices. »
Name, love, protect
For Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, naming what surrounds us is the first step to ensuring the future of the world; an awareness born from the feelings of anguish and helplessness that led to the creation of Mothers at the Front. “To love Nature, you must know how to name what makes it up. It is difficult to say that we love “people”, in general… but it is so easy to say: I love Manoé, Ulysses, Mishka; I love Edmond, Oscar, Albert, Romane, Mai, Lou and Jules; I like these people that I know how to name. And if I love them, I want to protect them. It’s the same for Nature,” she writes in the album’s introduction.
“By sharpening the connection we have with what surrounds us, we refine our love for the territory and, therefore, we refine our concern for the world and our care. This is true for adults, and particularly tangible with children. Recently, mine have become much better at loving the identities of what grows around them, whether trees, plants, flowers or small berries. They pay more precise attention to living things. And I know that this attention will last, that it will be there forever. »
To allow young people to make the book their own, to discover for themselves, the author and illustrator designed it as a guide, without the academic aspect. Thus, each flower, although carried by a human face and a highly poetic illustration, is easily recognizable.
Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette also offers a unique identity and voice to each specimen through her texts. “I wanted to have fun and put myself in their shoes. By studying flowers, you quickly understand that there are rebels and warriors, healers and delicate queens. Obviously, it’s a projection, but they all have their personalities. I also chose to make them flower women. It’s so rare that a woman will speak to “I” for who she is in all her candor and without filter. It inspired me. »
As a revolt against the generalized indifference that unites us to nature, the writer offers at the end of her book a recipe for seed bombs to throw in vacant lots, sidewalk cracks, backyards, parks. and the alleys to make the concrete bloom and recolor the world with immortal joys.
“I dream of forming small armies,” says the artist with a laugh. I believe very much in the power and intelligence of hope. We have the impression that hope is lazy. Now, it is courageous to resist through joy and beauty. But to resist in a very concrete way, I think we have to move a little towards rebellion. »