Trumpets of Death: A Graphic Novel

by Simon Bournel-Bosson, Simon Bournel-Bosson (Illustrator)

Overview

One rainy night, Antoine gets dropped off at his grandparents' remote house in the middle of the woods. He's stuck between a doting grandmother and a grandfather openly hostile to his presence, and time crawls by while he waits to hear from his parents. When Antoine ventures out with his grandfather to forage for mushrooms, intergenerational conflict and mysterious forces of nature culminate in a fearsome hunt through the forest that will resolve their differences once and for all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765644317
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/05/2025
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	7.25(w) x 10.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 - 13 Years

About the Author

Simon Bournel-Bosson is a graphic designer and comic artist based in France. After earning a higher diploma in Applied Arts at La Martinière in Lyon, began working in graphic design and art. Together with Maxime Gueugneau, he co-wrote two illustrated reports, En Diagonale in 2017 and Azur in 2021, for Kiblind editions. The Trumpets of Death is his first comic book.

Simon Bournel-Bosson is a graphic designer and comic artist based in France. After earning a higher diploma in Applied Arts at La Martinière in Lyon, began working in graphic design and art. Together with Maxime Gueugneau, he co-wrote two illustrated reports, En Diagonale in 2017 and Azur in 2021, for Kiblind editions. The Trumpets of Death is his first comic book.

Editorial Reviews

"Simon Bournel-Bosson's debut graphic novel is a surreal, emotional, and intriguing exploration of intergenerational conflict, growth, and human nature."—starred, Shelf Awareness

From the Publisher

2025-05-16
A boy’s unhappy visit with his grandparents in the French countryside turns very dark in this translated graphic-novel import.

When Antoine’s mother leaves their home, his father unceremoniously drops him off with his grandparents while he sorts things out. Antoine’s fussbudget grandmother tries to engage with Antoine, but his grandfather, an avid hunter whose trophies festoon the home’s interior, is openly, sometimes terrifyingly hostile. One day, while reluctantly foraging with his grandfather, Antoine picks a mysterious white mushroom and finds himself transformed into a white deer. Bournel-Bosson’s precise, realistic linework captures Antoine’s loneliness with panel compositions that isolate him or emphasize his diminutive stature. The palette rotates among two-color combinations: Yellow and blue give way to mauve and yellow, then green and yellow, and so on. These color shifts combine with closeups that approach the grotesque to give the tale an air of the weird even before Antoine’s transformation. This metamorphosis brings Antoine moments of fear and of tremendous beauty before a resolution that’s both just and profoundly unsettling. Readers will note that the mushroom that triggers Antoine’s change is not the edible trompette de la mort (commonly known in English as the black trumpet or black chanterelle). The literal translation of the original title gives the English-language edition an appropriately sinister feel its French readers might not experience. Antoine and his family present white; his behavior and build mark him a preteen.

An unsettling, thought-provoking coming of age.(Graphic fantasy. 12-adult)

Kirkus Reviews