The night of all possibilities
Emilio visits his grandfather in this house surrounded by huge trees that “look like giants whispering secrets”. Every evening, the grandfather tells stories to his attentive grandson, then, on a full moon night, when “the trees and bushes are teeming with buzzing, rustling, quivering, little lights”, Grand-Père offers to go to the coveted star. In How to go to the moon, the Spaniard Nicolas Schuff poetizes the privileged relationship between a grandfather and his descendants. The personality of the old man, whom nothing seems to be able to stop, a solitary and loving poet, tender, proud, wild and reassuring, envelops the story with a mystical aura that makes you want to find yourself in these places where everything is possible. Ana Sender’s paintings provide a complement to the text, set the characters in a luxuriant nature, veiled at night, but perceptible thanks to the whiteness of the moon and the starry vault. From three years old.
Marie Fradette
How to go to the moon
★★★★
Nicolas Schuff and Ana Sender, translated by Florent Grandin, Éditions Père Fouettard, Strasbourg, 2023, 40 pages
Kafka differently
Disturbed by his lack of inspiration, Franz Kafka goes out for a walk in a Berlin park. He then meets a young girl in tears who tells him that she has lost her doll. The author consoles her by assuring her that she has gone on a trip instead and that she will write to him. In the days that followed, Kafka, as a volunteer postman, gave her the letters from the traveler. Inspired by a real episode experienced by the author of MetamorphosisLarissa Theule presents with Kafka and the doll a luminous, tender and lesser-known portrait of the author — although Didier Lévy also adapted it for Sarbacane in 2016. The narration interspersed with dialogues ensures a rhythm adapted to these round trips between the crossing of the doll and the encounters daily in the park. The artist Rebecca Green offers expressive illustrations that take up most of the author’s words while adding here and there a bird, a mouse, a leaf tossed by the wind, which helps to nourish these everyday moments. From four years old.
Marie Fradette
Kafka and the doll
★★★1/2
Larissa Theule and Rebecca Green, translated by Ilona Meyer and Caroline Drouault, Éditions des Éléphants, Paris, 2023, 48 pages
Notes of passages to the Moon
Jean-Christophe Réhel has accustomed us to the staging of marginalized characters who, through their sensitivity and their original outlook on the world, invite us into the heart of humanity. The floor of the Moonhis second collection of youth poetry — after comb the fire (The short scale, 2019) —, offers us an immersion in the daily life of a child with learning disabilities: “The word / Crocodile / I am not able to read it well // The word bites my leg each time. Rather than making a laborious description of days in class, Réhel telescopes his character into a universe where the images, often astonishing, offer a striking and empathetic light on a reality that sometimes seems absurd: “I don’t believe it / Two words written the same way / Which mean two very different things / It’s as if I were telling you / I love you / But I was talking about the crumbs in the toaster. Life in Réhel’s hand: a breath of fresh air. From age nine.
Yannick Marcoux
The floor of the Moon
★★★1/2
Jean-Christophe Réhel, The short scale, Montreal, 2023, 90 pages
A half-full vase
Anxiety among young people is increasingly addressed in children’s literature, but how many books are camped “in the land of muds”, near the “valley of sponges” and the “forest of mops”? Catherine Lepage’s new album, Henry’s story, offers us the story of a vase in the grip of emotional outbursts, preventing him from displaying the beautiful bouquets that adorn his comrades: “To have such beautiful bouquets, the vases need water. They should neither be too full nor too empty. Through this ingenious metaphor, Henri learns not to let “a little drop become an ocean”. Added to this whimsical staging is a spectacular visual universe. Drawing from the generous palette of floral colours, the illustrations evoke lush sea beds or iridescent volcanic regions. We clear our reading path among the images as we plunge our nose into a bouquet of flowers: with pleasure and pleasure. From four years old.
Yannick Marcoux
Henry’s story
★★★/1/2
Catherine Lepage, Like giants, Varennes, 2023, 48 pages