Salon du Livre, Montreuil — pt. 2

With so many fantastic and inventive books on display at the Salon, it was hard to choose just a few to show you.  Here are some books — and the illustrators who created them— that stand out in my memory.  It was great to have a chance to meet and chat and peruse!!

L'Ange des Chaussures (Editions Notari, 2009) by Giovanni Zoboli, art by Joanna Concejo.  

Joanna Concejo's work is beautiful, with images in graphite and gouache that are poetic, delicate and startling.  She has illustrated books for many publishing houses all over Europe, such as Topipittori (Italy), Editions Notari (Switzerland), OQO (Spain), Rouergue (France).  I discovered her work a few years ago when I got Grand et Petit (published by Atelier du Poisson Soluble, 2008) — a book about two brothers, one tiny and the other gigantic, which is a great favourite of mine.

 

Her latest book is Les Cygnes Sauvages (aka The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen)— published in Italian by Topipittori and in French by Notari....

...looks intriguing!

Next up is Clotilde Perrin, whose work I have long admired....

 Le Colis Rouge (Rue du Monde, 2007) is a wordless book about a mysterious red parcel.

Educated at Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, Clotilde Perrin works in a variety of mediums: color pencil, watercolour, gouache and even cut paper —check out the wonderful Patron et Employee (from Didier Jeunesse, 2009). 

And she must have been working around the clock in recent times — six of her books were published in 2010!!  They included: Pedro à 100 à l'heure(Mango); La Farandole des Mots (Nouvel Angle); Tout Autour de Moi (Rue du Monde), and J'ai mis du sable dans mon cartable (Sarbacane)... about a little boy nostalgic for his summers at the beach.

Lucille Placin was at Rue du Monde signing her new book, Le Petit Oulipo, an anthology of wordplay and poetry.

I like her fresh and playful imagery —

—it's no surprise that she's also gotten commissions from Djeco, the fabulous Parisian toymakers!

And at the stand of Bayard Presse, there was Hervé Tullet and Bridget Strevens.

In addition to illustrating children's books and magazines (for Albin Michel, Tourbillon and Bayard, among others), Bridget teaches at Parsons Paris Art School and is very active in SCBWI.

As for Hervé, his lively and interactive books (like Turlututu and Moi c'est Blop) many of which have been translated to English and released in the USA— got a lot of acclaim at the Bologna Book Fair in recent years.

Of course this looooooooooooooong blog post doesn't begin to scratch the surface.... these are only a few of the illustrators I managed to talk with. If you are interested in seeing some of the Salon's prize-winners, check their site!