She is the lucky winner of La Pépite d’or 2022, the supreme prize of the Montreuil Youth Book Fair, with her magnificent album A crochet Laki. Marine Schneider, Belgian author and illustrator, answered questions from our fans, because the poetry of her beautiful book works even on the older ones. Emotions guaranteed, we warned you!
Hekla arrived on a windy day on the way to old Laki. Her small body spun gently above the crater. Laki first thought of an insect, then of a bird. But no, it was Hekla.
So make fun of the back cover ofA crochet Laki, the book published by Albin Michel Jeunesse which won a golden nugget to the young Brussels illustrator Marine Schneider at the Montreuil fair in France at the beginning of December. In the editorial staff we confess that we have read this book alone, without children around (although there are plenty!). The album is just beautiful, both visually and lyrically. But since we’re not objective, we’ll let you find out for yourself: you’ll find it in all good bookstores.
How does it feel to receive the golden nugget?
A surprise, a big surprise! I wasn’t expecting that at all. I was vaguely hoping for the Picture Book Nugget but hadn’t allowed myself to hope for the Gold Nugget. It’s a reward I obviously coveted, but much later in my career, maybe when I turned 50, like a holy grail.
I also felt a sort of disbelief, I didn’t believe it right away, and I’m not sure I really made it even today, even if the Nugget is in my studio, it’s still a bit abstract. And finally I felt, I admit, a little pride all the same, because being selected for the show is already huge, but then winning… and that is a professional jury that recognizes that this book is one of the best books in the world. year in French-language children’s literature, it’s still crazy!
What did you get inspired by? A crochet Laki?
It is a project that has been unconsciously present in my mind since the birth of my son, who is 4 and a half years old, and perhaps even during my pregnancy. And it was when I became a mother that I started having questions about my son’s place in the world, my place in the world now that I had a son, what I was going to pass on, but also a very strong awareness from death, from my own and of course from her. Very strong sensations and emotions, linked to learning about motherhood.
I went to Iceland in 2021 and saw a volcano erupt. Chance had caused it to explode a few days before my arrival. And seeing this incredible spectacle of the bubbling volcano, the exploding lava, the noise, the color, the heat, the sensations… it’s kind of like this vision has been grafted onto all the questions I’ve piled up to ask A crochet Laki. Everything was in the right order thanks to this volcano.
Read also: Children’s Books | Booksellers’ favorites of 2022, for all ages
Who are those who inspired you and still inspire you today?
When I was a student, I was very inspired by other illustrators like Beatrice Alemagna, Kitty Crowther, and the more I progress, the less I get inspired by illustrators but other things like movies. The inspiration for Hekla and Laki also came from the film Dogville, Lars Von Trier and literature. I really like Icelandic authors, like Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir. In one of her books, Miss Iceland, has a heroine called Hekla. I had read this book a long time ago, and it was (re)flipping through the back cover that I realized that heroin was called that. It’s like my mind has absorbed it and put it aside!
I also love Eva Lindström in the illustration, a Swedish woman who won the Astrid Lindgren Prize 2022. I also listen to a lot of music, one of my inspirations for Working a lacqueri c’est Vesuvius, by Sufjan Stevens.
The children’s literature sector is said to be saturated, a word for those who would like to do what you do but can doubt?
I was the first to think it was clogged and I wasn’t going to make it. But I always told myself “if I want to do it, I’ll do it”. I started being very active when I was a student. Now there is Instagram, but then I had a blog where I published my works, my research, my notebook, etc. And then I would recommend taking calls for projects from fanzines, little magazines. We must already try our hand at publishing – a book is not just beautiful pictures with beautiful text! It’s also page after page, an entire narrative, start to finish, a character that must look alike, start to finish. I found it interesting to give it a try, eventually without too many stakes at the beginning, by telling yourself that what you’re doing at the beginning is nothing, but it’s also not a book that will sit in bookstores for years.
I’m not one who dares to spread propaganda or get involved in everyday life, but in my work I do, because I also know that’s how it works. My first editor, I met him at an illustration conference and finally went to see him handed him my business card with my blog name on it, and that’s how I got my first job illustrating a scrapbook called I am death.
And finally, I think we shouldn’t hesitate to go and see, listen, read and question, in children’s illustration but also in art in general and in literature.
Marine’s favorite children’s literature
Helloby Lucie Felix (Grown People editions), for the little ones: it is a book that unfolds, to be placed on the baby’s playmat, through which to look and look at the baby’s world through filters of colors and shapes.
The denby Emma Adbåge (Cambourakis): in this book the author has captured the essence of childhood, in her way of drawing the characters, but also the story itself.
What, by Adrien Albert (L’Ecole des loisirs): a very nice book! The reader gets the impression that he is in secret with the hero of the book.
