As reflective reading for Armistice Day this year, when there is an active war once more in Europe, it is well worth having a look at André Hellé's Book of Hours, a picture book for grown-ups that follows the Great War from outbreak to peace.
Hellé was an established children's author in a style that was a mixture of naif and faux-naif, with one eye on the parent reading the story to the child. When he decided to write a documentary history of the war after it was finally over, he made it a children's book for grown-ups in brilliant pochoir colours and static tableaux.
Hellé was an absurdist writer and illustrator who was a fixture in the Parisian cafe scene before the First World War. Like many other natives of Alsace, he had been resentful of the domination of his homeland as an outcome of the Franco-Prussian war, and so initially saw the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 as an opportunity for its return to French rule. As the war dragged on and the casualties mounted, he became more sombre and reflective.
The Flowerdew press is publishing a mimotyped translation of the three graphic books:
Alphabet of the Great War 1914-1916,
The Book of Hours Heroic and Dolorous for the Years 1914-1915-1916-1917-1918,
Alphabet of the Great Peace
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