At the rhythm of the seasons
From snowy January to festive December, passing through July, the hottest month, life in the heart of the forest beats to the rhythm of the seasons. This is what William Snow and Alice Melvin tell us in Swoodland bear. A year in the forest, a poetic album, finely presented and illustrated with great art. Each double page opens with a seasonal decor full of details that enrich and extend the short text written with four hands by the couple Snow and Melvin. Nature is revealed in the meticulous and generous line of the illustrator, who manages to create warm atmospheres and to make you feel all the life that stirs in the forest. May is good for a picnic, pleasant on this checkered tablecloth overflowing with food, just as November is comforting around the glowing fire. The decorations are enriched with cutouts and flaps that open onto the personalized and welcoming interior of the small houses encountered. We walk through the forest slowly, giving the eye time to discover all its beauty.
Marie Fradette
Wood mouse A year in the forest
★★★★
William Snow and Alice Melvin, translated from English (UK) by Ramona Badescu, Albin Michel jeunesse, Paris, 2022, 56 pages. From 3 years.
The creative wealth of children
The final of the treehouse contest has come. Equipped with his backpack, his travel diary, his passport and his binoculars, the crane flies around the world to discover the inventiveness of children. It stops in seven finalist countries and details the host trees. The peculiarities of the Japanese camphor tree, the Mexican cypress, the Australian fig tree, to name a few, are presented by the bird. Each is then examined with a magnifying glass in a double page which opens onto an animated decor. The antlers are full of spaces occupied by young people who go about different activities, such as reading, cooking, napping, drawing or DIY. Readers will also have fun finding the camouflaged crane in the scenes. Presented in a large format that embraces the majesty of the subject, The cabin competition allows a quick trip around the world while highlighting the creative richness of children. We will however criticize the text in cursive letters which remains unsuitable for young readers.
Marie Fradette
The cabin competition
★★★
Camille Garoche, Little Urban, Paris, 2022, 40 pages. From 4 years old.
The loose tongues of desire
My first time, collective under the direction of Karine Glorieux, brings together the story of nine authors who recount the lasting memory of their first sexual relationship. Incubated by an assumed vulnerability, the stories are funny, sensual or touching, embodying, each in their own way, a balm to soothe the pressure of this rite of passage. This is not the first time that several voices have been brought together to address the stories of first sexual experiences, but mores are changing and the exercise, even if it is not innovative in all respects, educates on new practices, the fruit of a more assumed sex education than before. “A sexual relationship is not defined just by penetration. It’s so heteronormative and so… so… so much 1996 as a vision”, writes Jérémie Larouche in particular. An initiative that we hope will be liberating and inspiring, where taboos too often impose silence.
Yannick Marcoux
My first time
★★★1/2
Collective directed by Karine Glorieux, La Bagnole, Montreal, 2022, 248 pages. From 14 years old.
Grandma Rose is still there
The pandemic seems to have loosened the noose that pinned our lives, but the many bereavements it imposed on us still weigh heavily. Fortunately, some albums offer us the incandescent power of their light to show us the path that stretches ahead. If Rose was here, by Jennifer Couëlle, lends her narration to Toinette, a young girl bereaved by the death of her grandmother, who learns to make a new place for her in her daily life. By an iteration summoning the memory of her grandmother, Toinette recalls her benefactor influence: “If Rose were there, she would find it beautiful. She would tell me to take a picture with my eyes and save it in my brain for our next gingerbread houses. A story triggered by death, but which offers the last word in life, as evidenced by the blooming colors and the dynamic line of Bérengère Delaporte’s illustrations. “There are times when what matters most is to be comforted,” Rose would tell us.
Yannick Marcoux
If Rose was here
★★★1/2
Text by Jennifer Couëlle and illustrations by Bérengère Delaporte, The short scale, Montreal, 2022, 32 pages. From 4 years old.