> Surrealist machines
It is an album which gives few indications, lets the images speak for themselves and the imagination gallop. What do we see there? A slightly disturbing universe like paintings by Salvador Dalí, populated by strange “freedom machines” that resemble surrealist planes or submarines. A little girl that we don’t know anything about, except that she’s growing up “In a world seamed by borders”, is trying to get one. Her quest is laborious, as is the mastery of the device, but she does not give up. Thanks to her curious team which evokes as much the mouth of a dog as the head of a fly, she discovers “Magical and wild places animated by a thousand lives” and she can “To become what she has always dreamed of being”. Obviously, the freedom machine is a symbol, but we leave the last page of this beautiful book to reveal what it embodies.
The Incredible Freedom Machine, by Kirli Saunders and Matt Ottley (Kaleidoscope, 2021, 32 pages, 13 euros). From 6 years old.
> The tenderness of the turtle
In these agonizing times of pandemic and containment, reading Turtle-Express brings welcome comfort. A huge turtle that wears glasses and a red bandana around its neck leaves for its “round”: at the stroke of 3:45 p.m., it leaves the comfort of its home to look for baby James at nursery, then Juno at kindergarten. and finally Majé in primary. Along the way, she buys blueberries and wild strawberries to make a pie. By preventing Juno from crossing without looking, she saves him an accident. She consoles the elder, frustrated with his day, and brings this little world on her back to her home, to her garden, for a snack around a carrot cake. The world of Turtle-Express is not free from dangers or discontent, but it is the serenity of this loving and benevolent animal that prevails. We would like such a being to exist for real … but is not that what the last pages suggest?
Turtle-Express, by Sandra Le Guen and Maurèen Poignonec (Little Urban, 2021, 32 pages, 13.50 euros). From 4 years old.
> Uninhibited epic
One morning, Zoe arrives in the playground with one arm in a cast. Her best friend immediately asks her what happened to her. Thus begins an incredible epic of 36 pages. Zoé embarks on an uninhibited adventure story, which makes fun of geography, temporality or any form of plausibility. She was caught by a giant bird, deposited on the ice floe where an ice cream bear chased her to a forest. From there, she was picked up by a Japanese woman in traditional costume maneuvering a hot air balloon. She fell from the basket, but that’s not how she broke her arm! No, no, there is still talk of giraffe, underwater treasure and helicopter before we arrive at the fateful moment… when the bell rings and Zoe must interrupt her narration. The child to whom we read the album, frustrated, impatiently awaits the outcome. But, in the end, when the babysitter asks Zoe what happened to her, the answer is not what she expected!
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