Je ne suis pas une fille a papa (Christophe Honore)

Je ne suis pas une fille à papa
Author: Christophe Honoré
Publisher: Thierry Magnier
Intended age group: 8-11 (77 pages)
Price: €7,50
Available in French only.

Here's another of the rare books featuring lesbian moms in the french children's books landscape.

Publishing house Thierry Magnier is quite young (only 10 years) and has catch my eye on several quite daring publishing choices. Actually, several of the titles I intend to review come from Thierry Magnier Edition.

Far from picturing the day-to-day life of two lesbian moms and their little girl, "Je ne suis pas une fille à papa" strikes almost directly where it could hitch, A.K.A. the father of the girl.

Except that it doesn't. Here's what Lucie says about her father :

I'm not a mystery of nature, I was made like everyone else : I have a dad. Except that I don't know him. No pictures of him at home. No real answer to my questions, mere smiles, "off course you have a dad", "no, we don't know where he is".

I don't have two moms, but I do have a no-dad just like Lucie and I can assure you her apparent distance from the father issue seems completely unreal to me.

Here's what's really puting Lucie into panic mode : Her moms promised to tell her which one of them is her biological mom when she reaches the age of reason. Not wanting to see things change between her and her moms, Lucie does everything in her power to avoid the dreaded revelation, for instance letting them know that having two lesbian moms is a complete school nightmare.

Unfortunately (and pretty unlikely, IMHO), the whole story leads up to the departure of the non-bio mom.

Eventually, Lucie confesses to her school teacher and classmates and everybody teams up to set the two women back together.

Can you tell I didn't really like the unrealistic drama of the main arc?

My old friend Lionel Labosse already said it,good intentions don't make a valuable book. The two or three main arcs developped in the book seem really unlikely to happen : the fact that Lucie is so afraid to discover who her 'true" mom is and then says that it wasn't hard to find (they both have freckles), the uncredibly open-minded friends and teacher of Lucie and the split-up of the moms over what seems like a big child lie.

But hey, I still kinda like the book, it's fresh and brightly depicted. It's a kid's book with lesbians and it even features a glimpse of lesbian fight 101. (without the plexiglass)

Besides, that book gives me such a wonderful excuse to mention Christophe Honoré.

Honoré is known to mention difficult subjets such as AIDS, incest, suicide in teenager's books. He surprised everyone in 1996 with his novel "Tout contre Léo" (Published by L'Ecole des Loisirs) in which Marcel, 11, sees his older brother Léo die of AIDS whereas his family hides the disease from him.

He also delighted me last christmas when I got "Les Chansons d'Amour" on DVD (thanks, mum, BTW). Love songs was, I think, the american title, and since it's Honoré, it features bisexuality, menage-a-trois, fluidity of sexuality... and Paris, Paris, Paris. Trailer here.

Honoré also wrote some other great movies such as 17 fois Cecile Cassard, Dans Paris, and very recently La belle personne.

Love Songs Trailer
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