L'Enfant et L'Etoile by Dominique Halévy

L'Enfant et L'Etoile by

Dominique Halévy is a book published by Editions Gallimard. I personally enjoyed to reading this children's book so much. It is the story of a kid in love for a star in the sky. Not all the stars in the sky: just one. And he desires this distant star, he would want to cath it. For trying to realize this dream one day he decides of leaving his house, his favorite dog, for an adventurous trip, following and maybe capturing the star.

Starting something new, in particular a trip, very often, if not always, mean to meet the most diversified situations and people and different environments respect to the one left alone in our comfort zone. It is what happens to the kid, searching spasmodically at first for the star. He will be in a boat, he will meet along his way a nice lady who will fed up the little star-dreamer, the follower of the star, then a silent turtle, maybe a bit upset for the interest of the boy regarding her walk. Amina a little kid lives close to a desert. He will share several days in her company, discovering in this way the roses of desert; another protagonist will be a train and then the possibility of return home thanks to the help of a little man pretty weird and his hot-hair baloon. 

What a relaxation his return home, with his dog barking cheerfully at his arrival, his sweet home, his own bedroom, his bed and the possibility of some relaxation.

This book is symbolically the trip that each of us does in our existence and then the return home after an existence spent here and there and everywhere. Isn't it true that the kid had a dream? It's thanks to dreams that people everyday are plenty of enthusiasm for the existence, present and future. 

This children's book can be also read  also in this way: we want impossible things, we dream of impossible lands, or things, as a star, surely suggestive and beauty, forgetting our own world and the possibility that offers. 

Of course this book doesn't want to stop someone to dream. Dream-makers are the best people in the world and the same kid once returned home will be a different person, in grade, once adult, thanks to the reality he visited, from the desert, to succulent lands, beautiful, eccentric people, of reading the existence in a completely different way in comparison to the rest of people.

It's a book I recommend to all the children but a great reading for adults as well. A good discussion with your children, sharing thoughts would be good.

Anna Maria Polidori