Adele & Simon is such a beautiful book. It’s one of those books that make you ooh and ah over the pages. The story and the illustrations are equally compelling.

Adele cautions her brother Simon not to lose anything on the way home from school and he immediately begins to lose things. The book is a walking trip through early 20th century Paris.

Adele & Simon are walking through Paris, the City of Lights and there are such wonderful distractions and things to see that Simon can’t help but lose his things. They take a walk through the Louvre and Degas and Simon loses his crayons. They find acrobats performing in the streets; there is a parade, oh so many wonderful things! It’s a dream of Paris, the Paris of Gigi, of Madeline. The impressionists are alive and well, Paris is in its glory and Adele & Simon get to walk through it all. I wanted to crawl right into the book and live in it.

The double page illustrations of the city are wondrous and bring to mind the illustrations of Ludwig Bemelmen’s. The pen and ink drawings filled with watercolors are simply exquisite.

One of the things I loved best was the end notes that talk about the locations on each illustration like on pages 18-19, the illustration is of the Jardin du Luxemborg and Ms. McClintock provides a little history and documentation of the gardens. Very educational!

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