At the Gribouillis festival in Bordeaux, the success of children’s books

Dn the temporary hangar of the Garage Moderne in Bordeaux-Bacalan, the smell of engine oil rubs shoulders with the cardboard smell of hundreds of books. The old “muscle car”, a gleaming yellow despite its canonical age, does not clash with the shimmering colors of the covers of the comics, mangas, illustrated novels and other illustrated albums presented here, at the book fair of the Gribouillis festival.

Until this Sunday, some sixty authors, illustrators, booksellers and publishing houses are coming to present their art. And among anthologies of “pulp” from the last century, some iconic comics and serious new releases, the spotlight is on children of all ages, from toddlers to teenagers. “What I like are scary things,” says Andrea, four and a half years old and with one arm in plaster, seriously, showing a front cover revealing a ghost train.

We also meet Laëtitia, looking for new stories to tell to Raphaël, two years old: “It has to be original, easy to understand and quite short. He is starting to talk and most of the time by mimicry thanks to several books that I read to him.”

“A message”

“We’re not trying to educate children. Above all, they have to enjoy reading them, looking at them, and especially laughing! Even if sometimes, deep down, there’s also a message to get across,” agrees Valérie Cussaguet, head of the specialist publishing house Les Fourmis rouges. She leafs through the pages of “Poisson-fesse”, written by Pauline Pinson and illustrated by Magali La Huche, in which a young fish, whose head looks like a rear end, is tired of being made fun of…

Continuity and inspiration

For authors, even those targeting an older audience, childhood is never far away. “Making comics is ultimately a continuation of what we did as children,” explains El Don Guillermo, author of “Salami Show” and co-founder of Éditions Misma. “We played with our Lego, and now we have fun creating stories. All children draw, but we just kept going, we never stopped.”

Mischievously mixing absurd and offbeat humor intended for adults with drawings of naive anthropomorphic animals, Anouk Ricard, author of “Animan” and the series “Anna and Froga” has also drawn on her old memories to create “Ducky Coco”, a parody of a western, following the stories of a duck in Lucky Luke mode. “At the time there were only three television channels, I remember watching with my parents the films of the show “La dernière séance””, she explains during a joint meeting with Éric Veillé. “Naive art touches me, it’s the one that has the most sensitivity… And in any case, I don’t know how to draw otherwise!”