Literature

The children’s book is no longer a minor genre in France. A host of publishers, big and small, have been providing a steadily growing supply in recent years*, and one that is particularly open to foreign authors. Eclecticism in styles of illustration, variety in subject areas (from the lightest to the most taboo), modern educational ideas and innovative formats make this one of the freest and most creative sectors of publishing. Whether for fun or educational, books for children come in all shapes and sizes: from the animated book to the touch and feel book, from the paperback to the art book... Nursery rhymes, poems, stories, documentaries and strip cartoons vie with one another in finding original ways to stimulate the eye, the imagination and sensitivity of readers under the age of twelve - a cultural phenomenon which reflects the growing attention paid to childhood by French society. The course is set.

As the work of psychologists tells us, small children, long before they can talk, are dominated by their visual perceptions. Pictures affect the child and make a deep impression on him. Babies’ first books for discovering the world and picture books help the mind learn to perform three sequential processes which become established as the child grows. First, enumerating the objects illustrated (dog, chair, etc.), then describing them (the dog is on the chair) and, finally, interpreting them (the dog on the chair is happy). The child also learns to distinguish the real object from its graphic representation. Then, as language develops, he identifies objects by naming them. He thus "takes possession of it", with obvious pleasure, and develops his capacity for abstract thought.

With this understanding of cognitive development, publishers have issued hardback picture books with traditional-style illustrations - such as the famous ones by Père Castor (pub. Flammarion) - or contemporary illustrations - such as Tout un monde [a whole world] (pub. Thierry Magnier), which familiarises the child’s eye with an enormous variety of artistic techniques: photographs, collage, gouache, pastels, oil, woodcuts and paper-mâché.

Some of the most original are the bilingual picture books (French -Arabic, -Kabylian, -Italian, -Dutch, -German, -Chinese, -Portuguese, etc.) published by Fleurus and those with audio recordings, produced by Gallimard Jeunesse, in the form of a book with an accompanying CD of the sounds of rain, bells, a train, bees, a donkey, a lion, fire or... kisses!

Thanks to advances in printing, books are becoming interactive and suitable for children of all ages: jigsaw books, animated books (published by Nathan, Les Formes [shapes] and Les Contraires [opposites] come in three dimensions), domino books, books with modelling-clay (pub. Milan Jeunesse), rag books and easy-to-handle foam books that will withstand biting or floating in the bath, with detachable animal figures (pub. Gallimard and pub. l’Ecole des loisirs).

Publishers are increasingly producing touch and feel books too, such as the "La nature au bout des doigts" [nature at your fingertips] series by Maurice Pledger (pub. Quatre Fleuves), with which the child can discover by feel the difference between the velvet of a bird’s plumage, the silkiness of a flower petal and the roughness of the bark of a tree. There are even scratch and sniff books, in which you scratch spots to release the smell of lavender, leather, chocolate, or horse dung!

This modern concept of education, based on the senses, the memory and the child’s active freedom to acquire knowledge at his own pace is at the heart of the "Balthazar, aide-moi à faire seul" [Balthazar, help me do it by myself] series (pub. Hatier). Openly inspired by the Italian Maria Montessori’s approach to education, it covers the child’s main areas of learning: Letters, Figures, Colours, Smells, Space, the Passage of Time, and even How Babies are Made, a model of tact and "plain speaking" adapted for the very young.

As language becomes more established, the child of three to six explores the world through colourful stories about familiar characters with whom he can identify and who he meets in the different situations of his daily life: in the bath, in the park, at nursery, in the snow, out walking with granny... (le petit Léo et son doudou Popi [Leo and Popi] by Claire Clément and Helen Oxenbury, pub. Bayard, le lapin Fenouil [Davy the Rabbit] by Brigitte Weninger and Eve Tharlet, pub. Nord-Sud, or Noémie la cane [Daisy the Duck] by Jane Simmons, pub. Gaultier-Languereau).

Very appealing too are exotic or off-the-wall heroes like the vegetarian crocodile that saves little M’Toto from drowning, after she has disobeyed her mother by bathing in the river, (by Anne Wilsdorf, pub. l’Ecole des loisirs) or the monster which, in Gare au glouton [watch out for the glutton] (pub. Albin Michel Jeunesse), eats up the sun and the moon, plunging the characters into darkness.

In La Tétine de Nina [Nina’s dummy], by Christine Naumann-Villemin and Marianne Barcilon (pub. l’Ecole des loisirs), we have a new take on the ancestral figure of the wolf, a traditional childhood fear, and on a usually passive and fearful little girl. When, one day in the woods, Nina comes across a "dreadful, furious and starving" wolf , who tells her he is going to eat her up, she reacts assertively and even angrily, retorting: "You’re not beautiful, you’re not nice and you smell bad! Leave me alone." Finally, she pacifies the wolf... by giving him her dummy, and manages, by the same means, to get rid of it!

What these stories have in common is that they help the child to understand his emotions (sadness, shyness, anger, jealousy, etc.), make the trials and tribulations of his daily life easier to bear (learning about cleanliness, loss of his special object, separation when he goes to nursery school, arguments with other children, etc.) and to learn to overcome his fears (especially of rejection and abandonment, but also of difference).

In Bouboule rêve [Bouboule dreams] (pub. Nathan Jeunesse), the young reader follows a little boy who suffers from being too fat and incidentally learns about how other people see him. In Gros Soucis [big problems] (pub. Flammarion), he sees how Charlotte stops lisping and wetting the bed. Nothing that worries the very young is ruled out, whether trivial (see the scatological phase) as with the classic De la petite taupe qui voulait savoir qui lui avait fait sur la tête [The story of Little Mole who went in Search of Whodunit] by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch, pub. Milan) or fundamental (such as the fear of "losing" his parents when a new baby arrives, in Mon petit frère est un ogre [my little brother is an ogre], by Florence Langlois and Geneviève Noël, pub. l’Ecole des loisirs) - personal battles that help the child to grow up.

For older children (age six to twelve), there are books that do not shrink from tackling issues once taboo, including divorce, racism, sexual abuse, illness and death (especially the collection by Dr. Catherine Dolto, published by Gallimard). Of course, children’s pleasures and delights of children (love of family, friends, animals, nature, games, parties, etc.), poetry, the imagination and dreams remain at the heart of children’s literature, particularly in the form of traditional tales from this country (coll. "Les petits cailloux" [the pebbles], pub. Nathan) and elsewhere (Contes du monde entier [tales from all over the world], pub. Lito).

When it comes to the imagination, tender or sharp, to humour or naughtiness, foreign authors, notably from the English-speaking world, are very well-represented in French publishing, whether through Quentin Blake (Le chat ne sachant pas chasser [written by John Yeoman - Mouse Trouble], Armeline Fourchedrue [Mrs Armitage on Wheels], pub. Gallimard), Babette Cole (Le Problème avec ma mère [The Trouble with Mum], who turns out to be a witch, La Princesse Finemouche [Princess Smartypants], who manages to put off all her suitors so she can stay single and "do exactly as she pleases", pub. Gallimard) or Tony Ross (Je déteste l’école [I Hate School] and with Jeanne Willis, Je veux grandir! [I Want to Grow Up], pub. Gallimard).

But Grégoire Solotareff, who introduces young readers to the joys of puns and rewrites fairy tales (La belle lisse poire du prince de Motordu [The Beautiful Smooth Pear of the Prince of Motordu] pub. Gallimard), Pef, Le Monstre poilu [The Hairy Monster], pub. Gallimard) or the caustic "Zigotos" collection (Le cochon qui mangeait comme un cochon [The Pig Who Ate Like a Pig] or Le sanglier qui mettait le doigt dans son nez [The Wild Boar Who Picked his Nose], pub. Casterman) are not to be outdone when it comes to making the bedtime story a chance to let off steam and giggle together.

After the age of seven, children become more interested in book-length fiction. Social values (friendship, solidarity) are more in evidence, but so are the ups and downs of family life and conflict with others. Novels offer the child an opportunity to continue to tame the real world. He can also experience the impact of his own behaviour on those around him.

For this age range too, the choice is highly varied on the fiction side: first love stories (La Moitié gauche de la lune [The Left Half of the Moon], by Marie-Sabine Roger, pub. Pocket Jeunesse), detective stories (Ki Du, by Patrick Raynal, pub. Syros Jeunesse), stories of everyday life (P’tite Mère [Little Mummy], by Dominique Sampiero, pub. Rue du Monde, which tells the story of the hardship suffered by an ordinary family), adventures (the Kamo series, by Daniel Pennac, pub. Gallimard), epic novels (Les Aventures de Garin Trousseboeuf [The Adventures of Garin Trousseboeuf], pub. Gallimard) and stories based on myths and legends (Les Cauchemars de Cassandre [Cassandra’s Nightmares] by Béatrice Nicodème, pub. Nathan).

New star of the playground, the cartoon strip character Titeuf and his friends, created by Zep, in a decidedly blunt and humorous style reflects the concerns of this generation of pre-adolescents, especially troubled by the dawning awareness of feelings and sexuality.

Finally, non-fiction books - from the "premières collections découvertes" [First Discovery Series] (pub. Gallimard) with transparent pages that when laid on top of one another allow the child "to see and understand the front and back of things" on nature, the climate, technology, the human body, transport, etc., to popular science encyclopaedias science for children aged ten and over - have never been so rich both in subject matter (sciences, mythologies, civilisations, history, the living world, etc.) and in illustrations and format (see the "Kididoc" collection published by Nathan, with tabs to pull and flaps to lift). For the greater enjoyment of the adults who are reading along with their children.