Magalie Le Huche, children’s author and illustrator. “I always think about how to tell children about the world, which is sometimes so difficult.”

Author of a famous series Paco Magali Le Huche at Gallimard Jeunesse also published the comic Nowhere Girlabout his school phobia and recently turned a Clementine Bovet novel into a comic book, The little queens, was selected at the Angoulême festival. With great humor, she tells the epic story of three teenagers, Mireille, Hakima and Astrid, who are the winners of a schoolboy and Bourges-en-Bresse “boudin competition” and a boy from Bourges-en-Bresse who decide to cycle across to France. : to crash a garden party at the Elysée on July 14. They will finance their expedition… by selling blood sausages. And don’t imagine the media will make them their favorite. An interview with an author whose pop and colorful style says nothing less about adolescence and the harshness of the world.

Madame Figaro. – What made you want to adapt? The little queens ?

Magali Le Huche. – I knew Clementine Bovet’s work because I had read it Think softness and it turns out one of my daughters loved it The little queens. When my publisher offered to make a comic out of it, I was immediately excited. I really like the adaptation exercise I already tried with Pom And Purple by Marie Desplechin, and I was drawn here by the wit, vivacity and humor with which Clementine Beauvais tackled serious teenage issues like school bullying. The author, who was very present, at the same time offered me the opportunity of appropriating his story to give a new translation in graphic language. I kept wondering what innovation this medium could bring to its plot and its characters. I’ve kept the tone and dialogue very playful and dynamic while emphasizing the verbality of the exchanges, removing elements that the image already allows for…

Can you give us an example of how you do this?

At one point in their journey, the trio go to a castle. The caretaker comes to see them, greets them and invites them to dinner. In the novel, she then tells the story of herself as well as her two sisters. All three lived in Nevers, and one of his sisters had fallen in love with a German. After the war, she was cut off, and so were the two sisters, because the population considered them complicit in this “betrayal”. We understand that they took shelter in this small house. There are three like three “little queens”, and we understand that a parallel is established there. It was impossible for me to imagine everything that Clementine develops in the novel. But I kept the reference Hiroshima my love written by Marguerite Duras, using scenes and footage from Alain Rennes’ film to describe this subplot… Adaptation is a fascinating exercise. In the film, for example, expressions, direction, gestures will say what words could not say. It is about actually translating, that is, conveying the original author’s intention, feeling, vision, relying on other support and other means of expression.

establish a connection between The little queens And Nowhere Girl Your autobiographical comic where you talk about your own youth.

Yes, I went from school phobia to school bullying… This is why I am so attached to this project. I recognized myself as a fan of India in Astrid. The solidarity and friendship between the three teenagers, Mireille, the driving force of the group, little Hakima, and Astrid, so this idea that we’re moving forward together is nice to me, even if Nowhere Girl, I was alone, and my friends were the Beatles, whom I listened to obsessively. Both books talk about adolescence, a time of physical change, this transitional phase when we struggle to fit in, and what we need at that time. They also talk about femininity, and for me, who has two daughters, it was even more important to be able to evoke that through the odyssey of these three teenagers. I recognized myself because even though I wasn’t bullied at school, I remember the anxiety at school and the fear of being judged by others. We all need a Mirei in our pocket to protect us and make it all fly…

You are also a renowned children’s illustrator, the author of a popular series Paco At or even from Gallimard Jean-Michel caribou In Actes Sud…

I love making children’s books. I have a special connection to childhood, I struggled to get through it and books and images helped me tremendously. What keeps me going is this gap with reality, this side step that I can offer kids. I want to help them, entertain them, give them a little madness. Imaginary friends in books can save you. “How am I going to tell the story of a world that is sometimes so difficult?” is one of my constant questions. Children experience everything intensely and spontaneously, they don’t have the perspective of adults, and I love meeting them. i feel like i’m on a mission. With children’s books like comics, there’s a desire to tell things about life, but adding humor and distance, that relaxes me, but I also have to convey that.

Music books from the series Paco has Nowhere Girl we also find a theme: music…

Now I’m making an album for the decade Paco as well as a number of Nowhere Girl punk style with The Clash and their leader Joe Strummer. I am interested in the history of music, how it fits into our culture, what it says about society. I always read rock books. Music attracts and inspires me, it opens doors for me. I’m not a musician, I just play a little guitar, but as soon as I hear music, I want to paint. I actually feel like I’m in a movie when I listen to it, and to me, comics are a bit like a two-dimensional movie. One of my daughters, on the other hand, always listens to music while reading.

You are interested in children, but also parents. Dargaud has republished them in a single volume Anonymous mothers And The search for a new father …

Yes, it’s on the occasion of the mini-series adaptation of Arte. My co-author, Gwendolyn Reason, does a lot of work on single moms, blended families, and families in general. Anonymous mothers, the title of which refers to Alcoholics Anonymous, was published ten years ago, it was my first adult comic. I painted it during this period of identity ascent, when I was a young mother myself.

The little queens, Magali Le Huche, based on the novel by Clementine Beauvais, ed. Blowgun, 160 pages, €25.