“The day Cookie decided to be a bear, his dog life just got great.” A book that begins like this deserves our full attention! And the rest of New Cookie Adventures does not disappoint, because this character who asks himself so many questions and has so many adages to his arc (Become who you are, Fly with your own wings) is a dog as cute as he is inventive.
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Taking the precepts of the philosophers literally, he plans to change his life… thanks to his gifts as a handyman. Making wings, sticking confetti on a world map, this is his very material and very poetic contribution to the advances of our time. The naivety of the character imagined by Martine Laffon is brilliantly underlined by the colored pencil drawings of Louise Mézel. Mischievous, childish, expressive, they illuminate each page of this very nicely edited little book which, under its air of not touching it, its candid and zany sketches, tells the child that he is a stakeholder in this world, that ‘he can decide his life, his own identity, his happiness too.
And all this with blows of clumsiness, resounding failures, catastrophic attempts … Nietzsche had better watch out!
A tomcat in the pool
Timothée (the narrator) and Valentin are friends. One day, a new family moves to the village. For Val, it is out of the question to befriend a boy who could take his place in the soccer team or, worse, in Tim’s heart! When we discover Tim’s cat floating belly up in the pool, whose fault is it, of course?
Jealousy, a certain cruelty between children, mistrust of strangers: all these themes are approached by Marion Achard with a good mood at all times, and even the episode of the drowning of the cat passes without excessive drama, in part. because it offers children the opportunity for lovely farewell rituals – and Tim’s father the opportunity to showcase his skills as a Japanese poet and ukulele strummer.
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In A cat across the throat, everything is done to facilitate reading: a very large font, some very successful full-page illustrations, and above all a fluidity of writing and a tone perfectly suited to young readers who will find here a range of pleasing emotions.
Author: Martine Laffon
Illustration: Louise Mézel
The New Adventures of Cookie
Editions La Joie de lire
From 7 years old
Author: Marion Achard
Illustration: Walter Glassof
A cat across the throat
Editions Actes Sud Junior / Solo Reading
From 6 years old
