French / France
Romance
(Ballad)
Blexbolex
(text/illus.)
Paris: A. Michel Jeunesse, 2013. – [240] p.
ISBN 978-2-226-24234-1
Storytelling | Imagination | Fairy tale
Reading age: 3+
White Ravens issue: 2014
This book offers up an amazing kaleidoscope of magic and wit. French illustrator Blexbolex employs 200 expressive and colourful silk screen prints to tell a fairytale-like “ballad”. It modestly begins with “The Route Home From School”, but with every chapter leads further and further into the fantastical and the mysterious. Each of the seven magical sequences of this picture book branches out into an ever more intricate forest of images, associations, and fun-filled capers. Blexbolex has designed the picture book like a visual primer so that every page shows a keyword with a picture. The keywords call on readers’ imaginations, as they must continually guess, complete, and invent the story. Blexbolex delivers a unique and witty answer to the question of how storytelling can “function” in today’s picture book. The book won the 2013 OVNI prize at the Salon du livre in Montreuil.