The author of the Laurentians, Ugo Monticone, has just made one of his dreams come true. His book Le Cumulus Machinus, published by La courte scale, is a finalist for two of the most prestigious children’s literature prizes in Canada: the TD Prize for Canadian literature for children and young people and the Mélèze Prize from La Forêt de la lecture , a recreational reading program supported by the Ontario Library Association, with nearly 300,000 readers participating.
Published on November 11, 2024 by Gabrielle Sarthou
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For Ugo Monticone, this double nomination represents incredible recognition: “Just to be a finalist is truly a crazy honor. Just being on these lists is mind-blowing. I’m super happy,” he says, touched by these honors.
Although Mr. Monticone is the author of ten works The Cumulus Machinusmarks his first step into children’s literature, a journey different from his travel stories. “It’s a new path for me,” he confides.
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A dream turned into a book
“It really is like a dream come true,” he confides, “in a double sense,” he adds. The Cumulus Machinus was born from a dream Mr. Monticone had more than 20 years ago. “I rarely remember my dreams, but this one was definitely the kind of dream that makes you feel alive,” he explains. Inspired by this memory, he quickly took notes, but the story remained in a drawer for years before seeing the light of day, when he met the illustrator Orbie (Marie-Ève Tessier Colin).
This illustrated novel tells the story of a boy who discovers a remote control made of ice that fell from the sky. By activating it, he finds himself in a situation where the snowmen, instead of melting, rise towards the sky to gather in a cloud-ship. It is a journey into the imagination, colored by current concerns about global warming which threatens these winter characters.
A landmark collaboration with Orbie
For this project, illustrator Orbie not only illustrated every page of the novel, but she also chose to do all the writing by hand, a process that proved intense. “At the end of the book, she had tendinitis. Her whole arm was no longer capable of holding a pencil,” says Ugo Monticone, who says he is impressed by the illustrator’s dedication.
An interactive experience with augmented reality
Ugo Monticone also collaborated with Marc Sauvageau, a multidisciplinary creator from the Laurentians, to integrate augmented reality capsules into the book. These animations allow readers to explore the creative process of the book. “It’s like Orbie and I appear in the pages. We explain how we came up with the idea, how we use qualifiers to make the reader want to turn the pages, how Orbie made his drawings, how you make lines of movement so that the drawings have their movement. It’s really all creative stuff that ensures that we hope that young people, after reading the book and the capsules, also want to create and do something concrete,” concludes the ‘author.
Ugo Monticone.
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