Feather
Summary:
As Pavlina, AKA Feather, finds it hard to make her voice heard over her father and brothers, she decides to give up the piano and take up boxing lessons. [Source: Electre]
Edited by: Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
Games and Hobbies Relationships Self-acceptance Siblings Sports
Comment:
Pavlina is small and frail and finds it difficult to demand respect in her all-male family. Everyone calls her Feather and of course when chores are decided by fighting or arm wrestling most of them end up in her lap! One day, she decides she has had enough and gives up the piano and takes up boxing lessons instead. Her determination is matched by the remarkable change in her relationship with her siblings, who end up encouraging her and proving their love for her, long hidden behind a tough façade. The piano can then play once more. A magnificent, sensitive, deeply tender picture book that is feminist in the noblest sense of the term. The text is sober and restrained. The layout is dazzling, alternating vignettes, full-page illustrations and figurative dropped capitals that are rich in meaning. Rémi Courgeon’s illustrations have never looked better than in this beautifully laid out large-format book (with a bonus poster on the back jacket!). A success. [24/01/2013, Brigitte Andrieux, published in La Revue des livres pour enfants]