/ France
La peau du lynx
(The lynx coat)
Poncet, Mathilde
(text/illus.)
[Montreuil]: Les Fourmis rouges, [2022]. – [44] p.
ISBN 978-2-36902-170-4
Animals | Forest | Hunting | Environmentalism | Picture book
Reading age: 4+
White Ravens issue: 2023
This picture book begins like a traditional fairy tale: On a foggy stretch of land, a lynx rules over his territory. Then one day, the sinister huntsman sets his sights on the lynx. The other animals engage a seamstress to create a camouflage coat for the lynx. Run-together watercolours contrast with rough shapes when Mathilde Poncet wants to show the eerie side of the natural world. In portraying people, however, there is an explicitness bordering on naïve painting. In addition, the illustrator uses shifts in relative size to create dramaturgical effect. Upon closer study, contemporary elements stand out: contrails in the sky or the brutal force of the hunter’s weapon. Fittingly, the story has a very modern twist: In the end, the frustrated hunter takes up knitting – unknowingly helping the seamstress to provide even more animals with camouflage coats – and goes about the forest, unarmed, collecting mushrooms and berries. This modern fairy tale elegantly makes a case for a gentler treatment of the natural world. [OIS]