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Charlotte au pays des mots
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 18, 2024
C’est vraiment bien écrit, je pense que ça s’adresse à un public de tous âges. Donner une identité humaine aux mots et les faire vivre l’espace d’une histoire me fais penser que ça pourrait très bien être au programme de français, les visuels de ce monde pourrait avoir une façon de plus de retenir les règles de la langue française. La façon de décrire chacune des catégories de mots est géniale et très imagée.
C’est digne de l’univers de Tim Burton dans la façon dont c’est écrit. Le parallèle à Alice au pays des merveille est bon aussi.
C’est digne de l’univers de Tim Burton dans la façon dont c’est écrit. Le parallèle à Alice au pays des merveille est bon aussi.
January 10, 2026
Parce que ma maitrise de langue Français n’est pas très bon, je va écrire le review en Anglais (désole). J’ai toujours trouve plus facile de lire en Français, que de l’écrire. Alors, on y va:
I discovered this novel through a French Canadian friend of mine, and I was excited to read a book of fiction that is practically a miniature text book of French grammar. "Charlotte au pays des mots" reads a bit like a middle grade novel, but don't assume that means it is easy to digest. The author played with the concept of personalizing grammar, to the point where different elements of speech take body, literally, in an imagined world that may be real, or may be all a dream. Chralotte is a middle-grade student, in an anglophone province in Canada (probably Ontario, but it's never clearly expressed) who falls asleep while doing her French homework one day and wakes up in the land of words. Her arrival coincides with a brewing war: adverbs are leading the resistance against the tyrannical nouns, who force multiple other parts of speech--adjectives, prepositions, pronouns--to change in order to serve them and their gender (all transphobic enthusiasts out there, settle down: French is one of many languages in which nouns have a gender; French has only two, but other languages employ more, including a mystical 'neutral' because that's how these languages have been spoken for millennia). Charlotte thus gets to revise her own understanding of French grammar, as she interact with translucent pronouns (who need to be ready to take the shape of the noun they're standing in for), proud adverbs, subservient adjectives, busy prepositions, exhausted auxiliary verbs and their day care of baby verbs, organized in three groups, as they conjugate themselves across time. I have to admit, the trip was so much fun! It had an atmosphere reminiscent of "Alice in Wonderland" or a Tim Burton movie. At times the dialogue read 'gauche' primarily when we started describing specific grammar rules, but it was still unique and refreshing to read this story. What didn't quite work was the ending: after Charlotte returns to her world, and we realize she's living as a French-speaking Canadian in an anglophone city, she all of a sudden exults the value of bi-lingualism. That came out of nowhere, and it wasn't prepared by anything in the novel. Perhaps if the fight in the land of worlds had included a battle front where the French words defended themselves against the brutal English, with its simplified grammar, lack of conjugations, and impossible spelling rules (more of a mishmash of exceptions), that final turn in the novel would've made sense. But as it was, the ending felt rushed and abrupt. Still, a worthwhile read, which you'll need to slow down and chew.
I recommend this novel not only to Franch-speaking parents and their families, but also to French learners who are quite advanced in their "maitrise de langue Francais." It was a good way for me to re-polish much of my French grammar (which at this point I use based on instinct, as I no longer employ it in day-to-day life and no longer study it either). It's emboldened me to pick up other French novels from my shelf and revive this language in my brain, where it lay dormant for way too many years.
I discovered this novel through a French Canadian friend of mine, and I was excited to read a book of fiction that is practically a miniature text book of French grammar. "Charlotte au pays des mots" reads a bit like a middle grade novel, but don't assume that means it is easy to digest. The author played with the concept of personalizing grammar, to the point where different elements of speech take body, literally, in an imagined world that may be real, or may be all a dream. Chralotte is a middle-grade student, in an anglophone province in Canada (probably Ontario, but it's never clearly expressed) who falls asleep while doing her French homework one day and wakes up in the land of words. Her arrival coincides with a brewing war: adverbs are leading the resistance against the tyrannical nouns, who force multiple other parts of speech--adjectives, prepositions, pronouns--to change in order to serve them and their gender (all transphobic enthusiasts out there, settle down: French is one of many languages in which nouns have a gender; French has only two, but other languages employ more, including a mystical 'neutral' because that's how these languages have been spoken for millennia). Charlotte thus gets to revise her own understanding of French grammar, as she interact with translucent pronouns (who need to be ready to take the shape of the noun they're standing in for), proud adverbs, subservient adjectives, busy prepositions, exhausted auxiliary verbs and their day care of baby verbs, organized in three groups, as they conjugate themselves across time. I have to admit, the trip was so much fun! It had an atmosphere reminiscent of "Alice in Wonderland" or a Tim Burton movie. At times the dialogue read 'gauche' primarily when we started describing specific grammar rules, but it was still unique and refreshing to read this story. What didn't quite work was the ending: after Charlotte returns to her world, and we realize she's living as a French-speaking Canadian in an anglophone city, she all of a sudden exults the value of bi-lingualism. That came out of nowhere, and it wasn't prepared by anything in the novel. Perhaps if the fight in the land of worlds had included a battle front where the French words defended themselves against the brutal English, with its simplified grammar, lack of conjugations, and impossible spelling rules (more of a mishmash of exceptions), that final turn in the novel would've made sense. But as it was, the ending felt rushed and abrupt. Still, a worthwhile read, which you'll need to slow down and chew.
I recommend this novel not only to Franch-speaking parents and their families, but also to French learners who are quite advanced in their "maitrise de langue Francais." It was a good way for me to re-polish much of my French grammar (which at this point I use based on instinct, as I no longer employ it in day-to-day life and no longer study it either). It's emboldened me to pick up other French novels from my shelf and revive this language in my brain, where it lay dormant for way too many years.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews