author/illustrator: Éva Offredo
ages: 6+
128 pages
21.5 x 27.5 cm
hardback, round back, three 6 mm wide satin bookmark (yellow, orange, blue)
French
Maison Georges
My Name is Cloud Billy
Part initiation road trip, part landscape atlas, My Name is Cloud Billy is an ode to life and its diversity. It is a praise of long time travel and happy sobriety. It also questions the place of human beings in a primitive and wild environment.
As a young boy, Billy was destined by family tradition to become a cowboy, but one morning he decided to put down his colt and lasso and set off to discover the landscapes hidden behind his horizon. The author tells us the story that Billy himself told her.
Pampa, chaos, aven, blue hole, fjord, peat bog, taiga, mangrove... Throughout this long journey, the author invites us to marvel, just like our anti-hero, driven by this new taste for contemplating great natural spaces rather than conquering them. Deeply moved by this encounter, the author goes on to share Billy's travel diary, written and drawn in her own hand.
The book provides a second reading of the adventure, a second encounter. We discover Billy in turn, hesitant, resourceful, an explorer... We discover, at his own pace, how he marvels, feels the landscape, lets go.
Finally, she also found his Album of Wonders: images patiently collected, captioned and explained by Billy himself, once his journey was over. It's a place of knowledge: natural sciences, fauna, flora, minerals... His journey clearly changed him, and he became an amateur but passionate botanist and scientist.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
- 2022 Sorcières Award - Non-Fiction
- 2023 BRAW Amazing Bookshelf (Bologna Book Fair)