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PAUL AND SEBASTIAN by Rene Escudie

PAUL AND SEBASTIAN

By

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1988
ISBN: 0916291499
Publisher: Kane/Miller

From France, a pleasant, simplistic story about a friendship that arises in spite of differences in life-style. Paul lives in a trailer, Sebastian in an apartment; their mothers both forbid them to play together (""Go away! You don't live in an apartment like us. You don't smell of cleaning fluid. . .or steak. . .You smell bad""). But the two get lost together on a school outing, share food, and (since they trade jackets and are found only after dark, asleep) end up in each other's beds--after which not only boys but mothers become fast friends. The attractive illustrations, like the text, use deftly echoed details to emphasize similarities between the two families: the senseless rift between them is born of style rather than of race or relative affluence. Though the illustrations are stronger than the text here, it is interesting to have a European slant on a universal issue.