The bustards have returned to our skies, celebrating the first days of spring and the renewed vigor of our hearts. Over there, on another continent, and yet very close, in our goosebumps, the detonation of absurd bombs makes the earth tremble. Here are six titles to find refuge and anchor yourself in what lives.
The pride of Bologna
It was this week that the Bologna Children’s Book Fair announced the winners of its prizes. The independent publishing house Monsieur Ed is, for the occasion, a repository of our national pride, since it won the Best Children’s Publisher – North America category. In the wake of this great news, she publishes the album I will wait for you by the seaby Taltal Levi.
This intimate story invites itself into the daily life of Charlie who, in the turmoil of his house, feels invisible. She then undertakes an excursion to this place near the sea which, by its familiarity, comforts her. The road has its share of challenges, but armed with her loneliness and a will that she learns to discover, she finds there, serene, those she “loves the most in the world”. An initiatory journey that goes straight to the point, accompanied by immersive illustrations with dynamic lines, which add movement to the adventure.
Violence is human
It is this month that the first two titles of the long-awaited Romans collection from D’eux editions appear. At Sudie by Sara Flanigan and Pierre Pratt is added the novel by Roald Dahl, The Swan. We find Ernie, “a tall, badly-built fellow who was celebrating his fifteenth birthday that day”. His father gave him a rifle and, with his friend Raymond, he went to the beautiful countryside near his village. After shooting down a number of birds, they come across Peter Watson, who peacefully observes a woodpecker. Peter, top of the class, “small and frail”, has always been their enemy.
Out of sight, at gunpoint, Ernie and Raymond pour out on Peter the grimy gall of their miserable lives. The protagonists then engage in an unequal duel, where Peter Watson uses all the strength of his resilience to resist the cruelty and harassment he suffers. A powerful reflection on violence, to which Jean Claverie offers his watercolors, delicate and magnificent, which breathe a disturbing beauty.
The help of words
Another collection sees the light of day this month. Boréal is embarking on a new adventure, adding to its kit the Brise-glace collection, which will bring together poetic suites intended for an audience of teenagers and young adults. Two titles as a curtain raiser: Stand up straightby Lucile de Pesloüan, and kaleidoscope my heartby Kristina Gauthier-Landry.
The young protagonist of kaleidoscope my heart is hypersensitive, sensitive to moments of grace, but plagued by anxiety disorders. The gaze of others burns his skin: “Everyone really / everyone / wears around their neck / the same sign / discreet / a poster / on which one can read / love me. » A minimalist but vibrant poetry that invites itself to the heart of the margin, so that the words are stripped of their heaviness and fly away with the protagonist: « I always end up / by packing down the furniture / dancing barefoot / on the flowers of the carpet. »