Cici's Journal

by Joris Chamblain, Aurélie Neyret (Illustrator)

Overview

Cici dreams of being a novelist. Her favorite subject: people, especially adults. She’s been watching them and taking notes. Everybody has one special secret, Cici figures, and if you want to write about people, you need to understand what’s hiding inside them. But now she’s discovered something truly strange: an old man who disappears into the forest every Sunday with huge pots of paint in all sorts of colors. What is he up to? Why does he look so sad when he comes back?

In a graphic novel interwoven with journal notes, scrapbook pieces, and doodles, Cici assembles clues about the odd and wonderful people she’s uncovered, even as she struggles to understand the mundane: her family and friends.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250197788
Publisher:	First Second
Publication date:	11/07/2017
Series:	Cici's Journal
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	546 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Joris Chamblain was born on January 29, 1984. He stumbled into graphic novels when he was very little and decided at an early age that comics would be his career. Nowadays he devotes all his time to writing comics and books for kids, and even trying his hand at a novel. He and his many artistic collaborators have quite a few projects in the works.

Aurélie Neyret is an illustrator from Lyon, France. When she was little, she loved to hide away and read all night long, and—more than anything else—to draw! Today, her approach to life hasn’t changed much, and she works hard to bring her projects to fruition.

Joris Chamblain is a French comic writer and author of children’s books known in particular for having published, in collaboration with the illustrator Aurélie Neyret, his first comic book series Cici’s Journal (Les Carnets de Cerise in French) which won the Youth Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2014 and no less than twenty awards. Joris's comics are translated in about fifteen countries.
Aurélie Neyret is an illustrator from Lyon, France. When she was little, she dreamed of living on a boat; collected all sorts of strange and useless things; and loved to hide away and read all night long, to build clubhouses, and—more than anything else—to draw! Today, her approach to life hasn’t changed much, and she works hard to bring her projects to fruition. After a brief time at the Émile Cohl school in Lyon, she decided to squirrel away in her secret hideout (location still unknown) so she could develop her style on her own. After that, she worked for La Presse international edition. She created illustrations for various kids’ magazines (J’aime Lire, Histoire Junior) and invited readers on an adventure with Les Vacances de Monsieur Rhino (Mister Rhino’s Vacation), a children’s book written by Raphaël Baud, published by Chocolat. After several graphic novel publications in anthologies, she and Joris Chamblain put together their first book: Les Carnets de Cerise (Cici’s Journal), originally published by the Métamorphose imprint of Soleil.

Editorial Reviews

"French illustrator Neyret’s delicate, finely worked portraits bring elegance to this pair of graphic stories."—Publisher's Weekly

"The lessons are breezy, but the art is sumptuous: Neyret’s naturalistic illustrations have marvelous depth, with dense color, dynamic movement, and a fantastic use of light and shadow."—Booklist

"May have younger readers beginning their own writing, painting, or scrapbooking adventures." —Kirkus

From the Publisher

2021-05-19
A young girl’s imagination meets wholesome, kid-centered storytelling in this sweet graphic novel.

In this cleverly illustrated story, readers meet 10-year-old Cici, who lives with her mother in a picturesque village with friends. An avid diarist, she wants to be a writer when she grows up. One day, while in the forest treehouse she has built with her best friends, she spies an unusual sight: a mysterious older man, accompanied by a parrot, carrying paint cans through the forest. She and her friends set out to figure out both the man’s identity and his secret, hidden deep in the forest behind a looming stone wall. What follows is a tender story involving a zoo, animals, helping others, and the powers of art and kindness. Curiosity, imagination and teamwork take center stage. Most characters, including Cici, present White, though characters of color are present in peripheral roles. While Cici’s story is told primarily by a third-person narrator, the text’s key visual innovation is to periodically insert illustrated excerpts from Cici’s diary as well as newspaper clippings and photographs of events in the story. The final pages include a space for readers to contribute an illustration. While the clunky, at-times saccharine dialogue might be off-putting to some, the colorful and charming mystery at the center of the text will render this infelicity inconsequential for most.

May have younger readers beginning their own writing, painting, or scrapbooking adventures. (Graphic mystery. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews