November 30, 2009

Eskimo Grasshoppers - French Children's Books of the 30s and 40s

This post now resides on my other site 50 Watts:

16 comments:

  1. Trés fantastique! Merci beaucoup Journey Round My Skull.

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  2. La bête est morte looks really daring and not like a book for children and it's strange that it was written so early. I'd love to read it!
    I also like Mon chat by Andre Beucler. The style, language and font is just lovely and cats are great:)

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  3. oh oh... A bunch of beloved books here... (merci pour le clin d'oeil!)
    Where did you find "reptiles à colorier". Never seen it before and so far away from today's coloring books... Would love to see the content.
    I intend to write a post on Jean Bruller's Patapouf & filifers. Happen to have the book at home right now.
    Enjoy the day!

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  4. ah, what a treat! c'est vachement beau

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  5. OOOh c'est beau ! (but now i need to find all i have not yet !) and thanks .
    ;-)patricia

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  6. Oh so great!

    You honestly have one of the best art blogs in the blogosphere here, I must say. So inspirational! Please don't ever quit this blog :D

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  7. Love the lettering on the Guy Sabran cover - the image itself is great, but the title just electrifies it.

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  8. Thanks for your kind comments. I should be able to do a follow-up post soon featuring earlier books -- trying to decide if I should break that follow-up into two posts: pre-1900 works and 1900-1929 works. Restricting the dates definitely made this one better.

    Cy, root around on Agence Eureka -- they feature another book by Guy Sabran which looks just as good.

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  9. good god, that is fantastic stuff.

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  10. Dis donc, quite a post - I'm breathless! Merci, je me régale!

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  11. Brilliant post with great finds!

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  12. "Cornebuse et cie by Guy Sabran" is wonderful...

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  13. Chantefables, by Desnos! "Une fourmi de dix-huit mètre, avec un chapeau sur la tête"... All my childhood!

    (Roughly translated :
    A fifty-feet ant with a hat of its head: that can't exist! That can't exist!
    An ant drawing a chariot filled with penguins and ducks: that can't exist! That can't exist!
    An ant speaking French, speaking Latin and Javanese: that can't exist! That can't exist!
    Hey! Why not? )

    As a sidenote, "La bête est morte!" is a pretty amazing illustrated book, that was written in 1944 as a way to explain WWII to children (The French are rabbits, the English are dogs, the German are wolves...). It is very patriotic and simplistic in many ways, but still a very interesting read, if only to get an inlking of th way the French population felt at the time.
    More on the subject in French : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_b%C3%AAte_est_morte_!
    It appears to have been recently reprinted : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_b%C3%AAte_est_morte_!

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  14. Really nice post and good choice.

    If some are interested I made a scan of a Léopold Chauveau's book "Petit poisson devenu grand"
    You can download the complete book on my blog ;
    http://lumiereverte.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/petit-poisson-devenu-grand/

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  15. Have I told you lately that I love you? Seriously. Always something new to put a spark in my head. Merci beaucoup!

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