Funny giants, budding spies… Our selection of youth albums

MORNING LIST

Essential. If bookstores are so in terms of health rules during confinement, readings for young children are just as important, in times of pandemic. In the cast of our (almost) monthly selection of recently released youth albums: a dad in hell, five-legged giraffes, hilarious giants, budding scientists and spies, a vengeful orange tree, a nameless dog and quite a few other critters and protagonists.

“Daddy in the Underworld”: demonic junk

One day, Papa left. Not to go buy cigarettes and never come back, but it’s just like. In the letter he left with the children, he explains that he followed small traces that led to the cellar after discovering that his coffee maker had mysteriously disappeared. Sucked up by a magic mirror, soon he is on the back of a stuffed dragon, wandering in the middle of the “hells” – a series of thematic floors, all more repulsive: the supermarket, the stadium, the museum, the restaurant, school, library …

Strange objects and no less frightening creatures populate a dozen baroque double pages, conceived in the mode of a “seek and find”. The unbridled imagination of the author, Léon Maret, invites to unearth sponges in goat’s tongue, statues of invisible men, sausages with Cotons-Tiges or billionaire tramps. The shadows of Lewis Carroll, Winsor McCay and Sigmund Freud hover above this Mephistophelic junk. Frédéric Potet

“Dad in Hell”, by Léon Maret. Editions 2024, 32 p., € 19.50. From 5 years old.

“Underwater class”: aquatic epic

Submarine class has no text and that’s good. Because, on each page, we can ask the child to explain what he sees, understands… and listen to him give free rein to his imagination.

The analysis is facilitated by illustrations with clear lines and a simple plot – students board a submarine to discover the depths of the ocean – which turn out to be rich in twists and turns: a child notices a treasure, walks away from the group, fall into a hole, discover a teetering ancient city and a giant marine dinosaur… Enough to stay absorbed for hours. Elvire von Bardeleben

“Underwater class”, by John Hare. Pastel, 48 p., € 14. From 4 years old.

“The Standing Book”: controlled skidding

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