Picture Book: Peau d'�ne by H�l�ne Druvert

UK/France Links

Peau d'�ne by H�l�ne Druvert is one of my recent discoveries, published in France in 2015. The book is available at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.fr but not in Amazon.com.

I have a penchant for Peau d'�ne picture books which pretty much only come in French since the story is beloved in France but avoided by publishers in other countries due to the possible controversies of the tale of which there are a few. (Not familiar with Peau d'�ne? Read Donkeyskin at the SurLaLune primary site.) Which always makes the books even more appealing to me because they are rare to find. This is now one of my favorite renditions. This version also uses minimal text to tell the story, letting the reader take it at face value.

Druvert has a beautiful illustration style--using silhouettes to tell her stories. Every other page in her pictures books--for she has illustrated a few titles--are cut out pages, intricately die cut and designed to overlay the pages between them as you turn the pages. The pages are sturdy on heavy stock paper but still fragile since they are die cut. The results are beautiful.

So in the images below--which you can click to see larger--the left side of the image is the back side of the die cut page.

Other books by Druvert include, with the first two linking to Amazon.com and the second linking to Amazon.co.uk. The Mary Poppins and Paris titles also have the die cut pages. I do not know for sure about the other two.