Martine features in an iconic series of French children’s books. Sometimes she gets to hang out with Jean-lou and Sophie. The pictures in the books are very recognisable.
The other day, in the parents-in-law’s house, I saw Martine or possibly some of her friends lurking at the bottom of a pile of children’s books. This was unsurprising as their house is filled with classic French children’s books which belonged to my husband and his siblings when they were little. What I expected to see was something like this:
What I actually saw was:
I’m hoping that someone else out there will find this as odd as I do. My mother-in-law used also pick up a lot of books for her children from the Irish language publishers “An Gúm”. Apparently the Irish rights for translating foreign language publications were cheap. I still find it hard to believe that anyone was convinced that the scene below was typical of an Irish beach in summer:
If you want more Martine and friends in Irish, you need only say the word but I fear it may be a minority interest.