SuitabookThe Remarkables
Clotilde Perrin and translated by Daniel Hahn
- Reading
- Read a few entries at a time and pause to study the illustrations and connections between characters. Afterwards, invite the reader to invent a new entry, including strengths, needs and relationships.
- Themes
- Difference and individuality: The children are presented through distinctive qualities, and the concluding quiz asks readers to consider what kind of remarkable child they might be. The structure appears to value distinctiveness and invites personal identification, while the exact treatment of every character is not shown.
- Creativity and play: The entries and illustrations encourage readers to imagine character qualities and interactions, with the possibility of inventing further children. The book appears to treat imaginative participation as central to reading it, rather than requiring a fixed interpretation.
- Worth knowing
- Some characters’ defining features involve vulnerability or unusual physical effects: the crystal child is fragile and carefully looked after, while others are excessively hot or inescapably gluey. The surrounding tone and resolution of every entry are not clear.