As every year at the Children’s Book and Press Fair (SLPJ), the children’s and adolescents’ juries and a professional jury chose their Nuggets and the Golden Nugget in the rich production of children’s literature.
Four juries for four categories, children and adolescents, from all over France, met on Tuesday 26 November 2024 in four juries, one per category, by video to deliberate. The jury of professionals, made up of journalists and booksellers, then deliberated to award its Golden Nugget, chosen from the four selections.
Each year, the SLPJ teams select five books per category from among the thousands of publications for young people. “We calculated, we read between 3,000 and 4,000 books each year”underlines Sylvie Vassallo, the director of the show. A “tremendous opportunity to reveal talents in their diversity”specifies the press release. A selection “demanding and plural”concerned with the plurality of publishing houses represented and “genres that run through children’s literature”.
Golden nugget: “Bianca and the forest of lost parents” by Marie Boisson
Bianca lives with her aunt Clémentine and her cousin Julien since her parents disappeared. Tired of asking questions that remain unanswered, she decides to run away to find them. An address written on a post-it leads her to the “forest of lost parents”. False lead. He is then advised to go to the “problems to be resolved office” and the “resolved cases office”. During her quest, Bianca crosses paths with characters, each more eccentric than the last. An initiatory story and evocation of mourning, this comic book album full of fantasy seduced the jury of professionals with its “originality” and his “incredible audacity” (Misma Éditions).
Nugget illustrated book : “Centuries and centuries” by Christophe Honoré and Gwen Le Gac
This Nugget humorously features a young boy who explains to his little sister the enormous lead he has over her, and one thing leading to another, he unwinds time all the way to the origin of the world. In Italian format, the text by Christophe Honoré, very fluid and very adept at taking us through time, is placed on the magnificent full-page illustrations by Gwen Le Gac, which the children of the jury particularly appreciated. (Thierry Magnier Éditions).
Nugget junior fiction : “Mori” by Marie Colot and Noémie Marsily
The book recounts the creation of an urban forest in Japan by botanist Akira Miyawaki. The two authors tell this story through the meeting between two children, Mikiko and Kazuho, who will get to know each other at their own pace in the shade of the beautiful trees sown by old Akira Miyawaki. This magnificent book is an opportunity to discover the Miyawaki method, which consists of densely planting woody species from local natural vegetation, on degraded soils. A quick solution to create perennial urban forests, which are similar on a small scale to primary forests such as the botanist Francis Hallé dreams of (CotCotCot Éditions).
Comic nugget : “Hey Djo !” de Marzena Sowa et Geoffrey Delinte
The book takes young readers aboard a heavy goods vehicle in the company of Djo, a teenager who, for one summer, goes on the road with his trucker father. This trip will allow Djo to experience all kinds of adventures, to rub shoulders with the world, not always rosy, and to get to know his father better. An adventure that Djo records in a small notebook. Both an initiatory journey and a painting of society, observed through the eyes of a teenager from the cab of a truck, this book won over the children of the jury by “the fluidity of his dialogues”lth scenario which in “a good rhythm explains a lot of things about society”. “There are always interesting things to read,” defended Irène, a schoolgirl member of the jury. “I liked that Djo traces everything in a notebook and that a simple notebook can become everything”note Solan. “It’s a family, social and moving story that gets better and better as the story goes on,” Clarisse believes for her part. (Gallimard Comic Strip).
Nugget teen fiction “The wild dance of Harmonie Stark”, by Sigrid Baffert and Jean-Michel Payet
This western-style novel features children embarked on a journey to identify “the Viper”, whom they suspect of having killed old Fillimore, their adoptive father, and a large number of the children he had taken in. Following in the footsteps of Widow Edmée, the children will little by little unravel the threads of an incredible story behind which hides the paradoxical Harmony Stark. The novel addresses with great subtlety in a thriller full of suspense and twists and turns, complex issues, such as consent, childhood trauma, the integrity of the body and violence against women.
The Nuggets will be presented to the winners on Sunday December 1st at the show.
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