It’s an event that celebrates youth: the Montreuil Book and Youth Press Fair celebrates its 40th anniversary on November 27. The opportunity to meet the smile, the good humor and the pink heart-shaped glasses of Susie Morgenstern, star of children's literature.
The author of some 160 books, including The sixth, The world is yours or Back to school without a headis one of the headliners of this festival, which has also designated it Grande Ourse 2024 for all of its work, the highest distinction.
franceinfo: This Montreuil salon is celebrating its 40th anniversary. And you are extremely faithful to it: this is your 39th edition!
Susie Morgenstern: I only missed last year because I had knee surgery…I couldn't walk but I was ready to crawl! I have a love affair with France, with the French cultural exception, and this Montreuil book fair was my first book fair. It's a form of French art, a phenomenon that only exists, I believe, in France. It's extraordinary to bring children to books in this way.
You have seen the readership and these young readers grow and evolve. Are the readers of 20 or 30 years ago the same as today?
There's interference today. In middle school, kids have cell phones, so it's harder now. It takes more energy to fight for books now.
Have you changed your writing to adapt to this new readership?
My latest manuscript, not yet a book, is called Without Wi-Fi ! I try to show the poison and the hard drug that screens are. I see myself scrolling on my phone all the time! And even as a reader, I read less. Me ! For a child, I imagine what it can do… We don't know what it will do to their brain. I think we have to be very strict, very tough: we have to fight against these screens.
And yet, the children's book sector is dynamic and in good health, even if there was a small decline in sales last year…
I don't understand the economics of it. I know that our books work, that people buy them. And I love seeing the kids leave with my books. I started writing for young people when I became a mother. I followed my children through all the grades, up to middle school, up to sixth grade. Then, in the final year, everyone goes down! When they grew up, I was in crisis. And then, there were the grandchildren, and now a baby, a great-grandson: I'm gaga, totally gaga…
You grew up in the United States: what do you think of Donald Trump's return to the White House?
I am now used to saying that I am a political refugee. I stopped my subscription to New York Times... I don't want to know anything, I don't want to see Trump all over the press, all day. I no longer have family in the United States, it's very far away. I left there 57 years ago to live in France…
Would Donald Trump make a good fictional character?
Maybe he's too much of a clown to be truly evil! He's a bad guy, a rapist, a criminal… I have a hard time making a “bad guy” because I don't want to see them. I'm trying to make villains, but it's not working.
