Children’s Books

As the French Immersion
movement grows so does the
availability of good _ children’s
literature in French. For example, the
1981 Caldecott Medal, annually awar-
ded to the most distinguished
American picture book has been
given to Fables by Arnold Lobel. The
French edition of this book is
published by L’école des loisirs and
should be readily available.

The three suppliers mentioned in
this article will order any books for
you if you give them the title, author
and publisher. Catalogues are
available and a discount available to
school librarians. These bookstores
have been mentioned randomly and
I’m sure any bookstore you favour
would provide the same service.

Le Bouquineur, La Mouette,
1222 Robson St. 3760 Moncton,
Vancouver, B.C. Richmond, B.C.
V6E 101

Centre Culturel Columbien,
3170 Willow St.,
Vancouver, B.C.

The books | would like to introduce
are popular children’s picture books
suitable for children in the primary
grades, K-3. Many of you are familiar
with the books by Les Lionni such as
‘Swimming’ and ‘Fish is Fish’. The
following titles are now available in
French and are published by Lécole
des Loisirs:

Un poisson est un poisson.

Petit Bleu et Petit-Jaune

Frédéric

Géraldine, la souris-musique
Alexandre et la souris mecanique
Histoire de caméléon

Au jardin des lapins

Théodore et le champignon parlant

Brian Wildsmith’s books have been
publishedin French by the company
Deux Cogs d’or and among the titles
available are:

Cache-cache-python (Python’s Party)
Le liévre et la tortue (The Hare and the
tortoise)

Le meunier, son fils et l’ane. (The
miller, the boy and the donkey)

Le savetier et le financier (The rich
man and the shoemaker)

Julienne, la souris musicienne by
Adelaide Holl is available in French
from Deux cogs d’or publishers and if
you prefer bears to mice, E.H.
Minauk’s stories, L’amie de Petit-Ours
and Petit Ours are available from
L’école des loisirs.

Of course many more children’s pic-
ture books are available from France
and French Canada. Three prominent
French Canadian authors of
children’s picture books are:

Gabrielle Roy; Ma Vache Bossie,
published by Lemerc

Courte Queue, published by Alain
Starke

Henriette Major; Un drole de petit
cheval, and La surprise de Dame
Chenille, published by Leméac. Un
jour, une riviere, published by La
Garandale.

Louise Pomminville; L’abecédaire de
Pitatou, published by Leméacis an
engaging alphabet book for children
in K-1. Pitatou et la neige, K-3 Pitatou
et le sport amateur K-3.

Marilyn Miller

Q.E. Annex Librarian,

Vancouver.