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BONJOUR CAMILLE by Felipe Cano

BONJOUR CAMILLE

by Felipe Cano ; illustrated by Laia Aguilar

Pub Date: Aug. 5th, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2407-0
Publisher: Chronicle Books

A free-spirited girl celebrates the morning in so many ways.

Camille arises on Sunday morning and “puts on her / battledress: a / tutu and a top hat.” She jumps on her bed, eats two pages’ worth of cherries (“loads and loads”) and then follows up with even more unconventional activities, such as giving names to the ocean’s waves and listening to a story told by the wind. She also decorates a huge number of balloons, melts an oversize ice cream cone and selects a “new favorite color” (pale yellow). Camille also has a map left over from the days of colonial Africa, which she adorns with men in top hats. Her whimsical dreams are finally interrupted by her mother, who is outside her bedroom and admonishes her to behave—for the second time. Written and illustrated by a Spanish duo, this small volume presents a very nontraditional sensibility with a graphic design that is similar to Aguilar’s fabric designs. Free-form black lines and shapes suggest objects rather than depict them. The color palette, in muted tones, is quite different from the typical, brightly rendered digital efforts in many picture books published recently.

Active and artistic young girls are not unknown in picture books, but Camille certainly makes herself heard among the others in the pantheon.

(Picture book. 4-7)