I am a huge fan of beautiful illustrations. As far as I am concerned a children's book with a well written and compelling story and well matched images is a small treasure. I have a pretty nice collection of these myself, somewhat stolen from my kids but then again if I recall correctly I am the one who carefully selected the books and handed my Amex at the cash register so that would make me the rightfull owner...
Growing up a girl in France in the late 60's the only illustrated books I was ever given were all from the same series. Each of them was a "Martine".
Martine was a cute brunette with a little brother (Jean). She had a dog called Patapouf as a sidekick. Each book showed her in various situations, on the farm, at the sea, as a little mommy, at themountain etc etc.
Your wealth as a French girl could be counted by how many Martines you owned (I had only three, but the best ones)
I am convinced that reading these books over and over left some kind of imprint on my brain and shaped my outlook on life. For one thing they are obviously responsible for my obsession with baking desserts...
The style of illustrations might be a tad too realistic for my taste as an adult but as a kid I just adored them. I loved how descriptive the style was, how good looking and well dressed the children were, how nicely their houses were decorated.
Their lives were so much more exciting than mine.
The illustrator's name was Marcel Marlier. His work was a little bit like a French Norman Rockwell minus the social commentary. He started illustrating the Martine series in 1950 and his last book was published in 2010, they are all together 60 albums.
You can see an evolution in the illustrations, his style of drawing, his skill as an illustrator and the all around fashion that changes through time. 3 generations of women grew up on these, I imported them to the US myself, in my suitcase, for my daughter...
Marcel Marlier died in 2011 at the age of 80 and as I was researching images for this post I found articles telling the story of how Michael Jackson himself discovered Martine on a puzzle in Germany a few years ago. He loved her so much that he got in touch with Mr Marlier and said that he would like to drop by his house..
Marcel Marlier said that he knew nothing about Michael Jackson so he and his wife rented videos of his music to get acquainted. He said that when Michael saw the original drawings of Martine he was jumping around like a little kid and told Mr Marlier that he was "gifted by God". He was so smitten by the illustrations that he offered to buy them all for a lot of money.
Mr Marlier refused and made a quick pencil sketch of Michael and gave it to him. According to the story, Michael mentioned that he would love to get in touch with Steven Spielberg and make a movie with Martine as the main character....
Sadly both Michael and Marcel Marlier are gone now but if Steven Spielberg ever makes a movie about Martine I will be the first in line to see it.