By adjusting to young children and their emotions, Little Brown Bear celebrates their 50th anniversary this year. The icon of API Apple magazine cultivates slowness, in reverse of a speed and populated world.
“It was not expected to last so much. His name is even difficult to say for the little ones!” Its author exclaims for four decades, Marie Aubinais. “This means that he met his audience,” with 3 million magazines and 800,000 pounds sold every year, he told AFP.
For his birthday, Little Brown Bear has the right to an audio decline of his adventures in a dozen languages among the most spoken of France, including Arabic and Chinese. The number of a collector with 50 floors since 1975 is in kiosks and a book will be launched in October, among other meetings.
An old hero?
He is the oldest hero of Bayard Jeunesse, published by Apple d’Api (3-7 years).
Hence saying that it would be old? “I think, on the contrary, he has a certain modernity. He has been adopted for a long time that he has adopted the ‘slow life'” (life of life in The Idle, Note as a editor), advances Marie Aubinais.
“In his DNA, there is also a relationship with nature”, which makes the character an environmentalist before the time, explains the 65 -year -old Angevin in a playful tone.
He took over in 1984 by Claude Lebrun, now who died, who had invented Little Brown Bear in 1975, inspired by his little son. The illustrations were carried out from the beginning, and until recently, Danièle Bour.
Despite about 450 stories on the clock, Marie Aubinais never tires. “Paste” from a point of view of the 3 -year -old is a challenge every time it is renewed.
Adventure themes are defined upstream with the editorial staff of the magazine. Marie Aubinais, who has no children, then begins her research with parents, professionals, in schools or in online forums.
“For example, on the theme of the race for the Olympic Games, I asked four teachers: the children, in general, do not seek to be the first. They want to play, participate, they are in an emotional and immediate report,” he quotes this former editor, on the API Apple stage.
“Quite deconstructed”
The writing then responds to “a discipline”: simple sentences, a certain poetry thanks to repetitions or rhymes and, in general, to a unit of place, time and action, for an easy understanding. The scenario must keep in seven boxes.
It is the children of Danièle Bour who give the brush blows, accompanying the clean drawings of colors in turn bright and soft.
Over the years, Little Brown Bear has become more round, his clothes have evolved, the mobile phone and speakers have appeared. But there are few concessions for modernity and its frantic rhythm.
“He is not an action character and can be interested in very dim things like the wind, things that the little ones observe around them,” says Marie Aubinais, who wishes “to give children the opportunity to become aware of their emotions.”
“Fears, joys, frustrations are the same,” at all times, he says.
As for the exposed family model, “they made us criticize that it was traditional,” he acknowledges the author, rejecting criticism. “He has a boyfriend whose parents are separated. And it has been a long time since I put Mom Bear in the kitchen or ironing. Long before my arrival, Dad Bear extended the clothes, he bathed,” he reports.
“A window in childhood”
“Little brown bear is even quite deconstructed: it is collected with dolls and dining room, it disguises itself as a princess,” Gwénaëlle Boulet advances, editor -in API Apple scene, which is careful not to transmit gender stereotypes.
Committed to the ATD Quarter World Association, Marie Aubinais also says that she is anxious to exhibit situations “that concern everyone.” But “his vocation is not to advance in society or social problems.”
For parents, reading Little Brown Bear opens “a window in childhood”, in the eyes of Gwénnaëlle Boulet. When it is not a Madeleine de Proust.
Source: BFM TV
