Every day, a child takes the same route to get to school. With her mother, she walks along the park, passes next to the bakery and crosses “this lady sitting on the ground with her tiny baby in her arms”. Shame, pain, desire to help, the little girl goes through a series of emotions in front of a reality still little mentioned in the world of children’s albums. The wealth of Without detour is due to this economy of words, to this refined text, punctuated by the steps of the child that she cannot help counting. Steps that separate her and bring her closer to this homeless baby at the same time. The text by Stéphanie Demasse-Pottier is enriched by the minimalist illustrations of Tom Haugomat. With few colors, the artist leaves room for the void which is responsible for continuing the narration. At the top, this double black page on which is inscribed in red: “I am no longer there”, a sentence which finds an echo in the illustration on which the child, wearing red boots, bends his head towards the ground, ashamed . The absence of faces on the characters also leaves room for suggestion and highlights the anonymity of these people. Touching.
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