Who Left The Light On
By (Author) Richard Marnier
Illustrated by Aude Maurel
Translated by Emma Ramadan
Restless Books
Yonder
3rd January 2019
United States
Children
Fiction
843.92
Winner of Prix Albertine Jeunesse 2023
Hardback
30
Width 235mm, Height 236mm
From French author-illustrator duo Richard Marnier and Aude Maurel comes a captivating picture book about creativity, diversity, and self-expression.
This is my town,
simple and typical.
Each house has a door,
two windows, a red roof
-all so predictable
But then one night... someone leaves on their light!
And in the morning, what a shock!
The shutters are sealed tight!
Who is that who lives next door
We've never seen anything like this before!
In a town where everyone follows the rules, one neighbor's decision to leave the light on at night completely disrupts the neighborhood, sparking a creative revolution. Vibrant, poetic, and fun, Who Left the Light On playfully teaches the powerful lesson that diversity, creativity, and individuality should be celebrated.
A picture-book ode to the power of creative nonconformity, Who Left the Light On achieves a rare trifecta: a loosely rhyming book in translation with brilliant illustrations. Mix in important themesembracing diversity and expressing oneselfadd a huge dollop of whimsy, and you have the ingredients to this charming tale. But the sum of the parts is considerably more than just that.
Nanette McGuinness, Global Literature in Libraries Initiative
A former student of visual arts, Richard Marnier is a writer and an artist. In his work, he mixes sculptures, drawings, and design with the conventions of writing and visual arts. Adept at children's stories, he has published several books with the Seuil Jeunesse publisher, Les P'tits Brets dition, Frimousse Edition, and Edition du Rouergue.
A former student of the prestigious Ecole des Arts Appliqus and the Ecoles des Arts Dcoratifs of Strasbourg, Aude Maurel has collaborated with Franco-German TV channel Arte. From animated film to still images and illustrations, she now creates her own children books, sometimes collaborating with her partner, author Richard Marnier. Aude likes to assemble words together, end to end, turning them into necklaces. She has thousands of stories to tell, some of which will become illustrated books.
Emma Ramadan is a literary translator based in Providence, RI, where she will soon be opening Riffraff, a bookstore and bar. She is the recipient of an NEA Translation Fellowship, a PEN/Heim grant, and a Fulbright scholarship.