créatrices de livres québécois pour la jeunesse. The list includes illustrators Hélène
Desputeaux and Paul Roux, writers Michel Cailloux, Henriette Major, Raymond Plante,
Michele Marineau, Robert Soulières, Bernadette Renaud, Daniel Sernine, Francine
Pelletier, Denis Côté, Cécile Gagnon, Mireille Levert, Christiane Duchesne and Gilles
Tibo. The last four are also successful illustrators.
Quebec still produces the vast majority of francophone books written for children.
Well-established publishers are Fides (1937), Paulines (1947), Pierre Tisseyre (1947),
Boréal (1963), Heritage (1968), Québec-Amérique (1974) and La Courte Échelle (1978).
Some of the more recent publishers are Ovale (1987), Michel Quintin (1983), Raton
Laveur (1984), Chouette (1987), Coincidence Jeunesse (1989), and in 1994, Les 400
Coups. Efforts are also made in other parts of Canada where French-speaking
communities exist. Among these are Ontario (Les Éditions Prise de Parole, Les Éditions
du Vermillon), New Brunswick (Les Éditions d’Acadie) and Manitoba (Les Éditions des
Plaines). In the field of publishing, there is at present a demand for well-translated
books initially written in French or in English. These products are favourably received
by both linguistic groups: Quebec writers tend to prefer North American involvement as
opposed to European, while Canadian English writers are happy to discover that their
books are in demand everywhere in the country, including Quebec.
Some of the main educational, social and political factors contributing to the success
of today’s children’s book industry can be summed up as follows. New programmes
being implemented in the education system call for a better usage of what have been
described as livres de loisir or pleasure books in order to achieve a more holistic
approach to children’s learning of their mother tongue. There is now a greater variety of
children’s books located in the classroom (coin de lecture). School libraries have become
resource centres and in French Ontario these centres are pivotal in providing young
students with a friendly place to find a good variety of books intended for pleasure and
learning. In Quebec, teacher training programmes often include methodology on the
proper understanding and use of children’s literature.
Throughout French Canadian schools, children are now writing their own stories, and
local writers give workshops in school settings. Such exchanges have demystified writing
and it is hoped that this will produce a new generation of creators. University research
has resulted in a greater awareness and a better acknowledgement of children’s
literature and the many forms it can take.
Socially and politically, French Canadian children’s literature has slowly reflected a
change in the traditional role of women and minorities in our society. Interestingly, in
French Canada the feminist movement of the early 1970s did not have much impact on
the books written for children until the 1980s. If in many of the earlier books the child
was often portrayed as a model child, the more recent publications offer a more
balanced picture of today’s children.
Political correctness has also found its way in both the writing and the evaluating of
children’s literature. The criteria for judging the current literature while taking into
account the intelligence and the creativity of young readers restrict moralising and any
form of sexism, racism, or other unacceptable discriminating.
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