as Sama, Prince des elephants (1950); most of his books have been translated, and have
won prizes abroad. One should also mention the collection Plein Vent, started in 1966
by André Massepain; and by the éditions de la Farandole and the considerable success
of Pif magazine (published by Vaillant), which was also famous for its cartoon strips.
The growing influence of detective magazines should also be underlined. Paul Berna (b.
1910), for instance, wrote his celebrated Cheval sans tête [A Hundred Million Francs]
(1955), which won the Award of the Salon de l’Enfance for that year. The story was
based on a real mystery, set in a working-class suburb, and used working-class
language. Millionaires en herbe (1958) is among his best books, and Berna’s style
influenced René Guillot, Paul-Jaques Bonzon, and other writers.
Humour and the Spirit of Childhood of the New Story-TellersHowever, the real change in children’s literature was due to the power of images with
the L’école des Loisirs publishing house in 1965, which was set up on the fringe of the
academic world to develop the sense of aesthetics and creative fantasy (Perrot 1987:182–
183). The introduction of foreign artists such as Sendak, Lionni, Lobel and more
recently Chris van Allsburg, was accompanied by the discovery of French artists such as
Tomi Ungerer, in Les trois brigands (1968), Le geant de Zéralda (1971) and numerous
illustrators inspired by the spirit of childhood such as Philippe Dumas in Victor Hugo
s’est égaré (1986), Michel Gay (Biboundé, 1986), and Yvan Pommaux (John Chatterton
détective, 1993). Gallimard developed the use of pictures with their collections of
cartoon-strip documentaries, such as Mes premières Découvertes (1981) and Les Yeux de
la Découverte (1992). The events of May 1968 also saw the development of a school of
the absurd, of caustic humour and of anarchist claims with, among others, Ionesco’s
Contes (1969–1976), the fourth of which was illustrated by Nicole Claveloux. This artist,
the most productive of her generation, proposed a modernist manifesto with her
illustrations of the French translation of Alice in Wonderland, published as Aventures
d’Alice au pays des merveilles by Grasset-Jeunesse in 1974. She has illustrated
numerous books by Christian Bruel, of the Sourire qui mord (Les dessous du sable, 1986).
She was involved in the editorial adventure of Harlin Quist from 1967 to 1977 in
France, illustrating John Galwaithe’s Dracula Spectacular in 1975, and in the Editions
des Femmes with her illustration of Brise et Rose (1977), an adaptation of a feminist tale
by George Sand, whose heiress she can be considered. The aesthetic current is well
represented by the Ipomée books by Nicole Maymat (Maco des grands bois, illustrated by
Claire Forgeot, 1986), with picture books by Frédéric Clément, at the Ecole des Loisirs
(Le luthier de Venise, text by Claude Clément, 1986) and with the work of Georges
Lemoine, published by Gallimard (Comment Wang Fu fut sauvé by Marguerite Yourcenar,
1979), or by Le Centurion (Leïla, by Sue Alexander, 1983).
The three great illustrator-authors of the last decade are, however, Jean Claverie, Pef
and Claude Lapointe. The first is distinguished by the subtlety of his vision in Riquet
with the Tuft (Albin Michel, 1989), by the diabolic turbulence of his creations (Little Lou,
La batterie de Théophile, Gallimard, 1990), and by excellent pop-up books such as
Peekaboo (Matthew Price, 1985). The second is a humorist who is more tender than
Roald Dahl, but equally talented: we should mention his La belle lisse poire du prince de
716 THE WORLD OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE