The Secret Life of Illustrator Rebecca Dautremer

The art of French illustrator Rebecca Dautremer is like stepping through paper windows into miniature, rouge accented worlds of wonder. Dautremer has a legacy as an illustrator with a soft spot for fairytales touched by a sense of humor.  She has worked on such children’s book titles as The Secret Lives of Princesses and collaborated with her husband, author Taï-Marc Le Thanh, on an adaptation of the notorious child-napping ogress of Slavic-lore, Babayaga. Dautremer has recently brought her design talents and also her love of folklore to life in the animated salute to storytelling entitled Kerity: La Maison des Contes (the English title is Eleanor’s Secret). Kerity, directed by Dominique Monféry, is about a young boy named Nathaniel who inherits his aunt’s library and the real life stories contained within the books. The caveat to this imaginative inheritance is Nathaniel’s illiteracy which is relentlessly mocked by his bratty sister and the impending collapse of his aunt’s dilapidated house. Despite Rebecca Dautremer’s renown, I sadly found very little mention of her in the U.S. aside from the incongruously English dubbed version of Kerity (the sister sounds like a digitized Brit and the parents seemed stocked with awkward dialogue).  Thank you Noela for your introduction!