A Funny Sort of Minister

Written by Dominique Demers

Illustrated by Tony Ross

Translated by Sander Berg

Alma Books

978-1-84688-456-6

96 pp.

Ages 7-11

January 2020 

The unconventional and spirited woman of Dominique Demers's The Adventures of Miss Charlotte has returned and this time she's accidentally delving into politics (hence the ministerial role in the title).

Miss Charlotte is heading by train to see her friends in Saint-Anatole when she accidentally grabs the bag of the Prime Minister, Roger Rarejoy. When she goes to the address with which it is labelled, she is sent away as a crazy lady (she doesn't just tell them outright she has his bag). But the prime minister's son, Gustave-Aurèle, wants to help her find his father and make his father proud, something the boy never feels he has accomplished, no matter how hard he works.  So together Miss Charlotte and Gustave-Aurèle follow the prime minister's schedule, hoping to catch up with him.

But, when the two unlikely companions end up at a car factory and learn the prime minister has not arrived to the impatient crowd, Miss Charlotte takes it upon herself to act as his representative, unveiling a new car and renaming it GA-GA after Gustave-Aurèle. She delights everyone with her lively presentation that includes a song and dance and has them heralding her as the new kind of politician. That is, everyone except the prime minister and his entourage who start to believe that Gustave-Aurèle has been kidnapped by the woman who incidentally reminds the PM of happy times with his own Auntie Josephine.

The hilarity continues with Miss Charlotte and Gustave-Aurèle seeking to get the important papers to the prime minister, particularly those that set out a new policy for education that requires more and more time in school and none for play, with the two parties ultimately converging to a charming reunion between father and son and the realization that play is an important part of learning.

Dominique Demers's original French-language series has charmed countless young readers across the world and we're fortunate that these English translations are being published now. These early chapter books provide straightforward but engaging plots with strong characters and subtle messages about creativity and play, bridging the genre between early readers and middle grade fiction beautifully. The writing draws the reader in immediately, as the distracted Miss Charlotte loses her bag and the Prime Minister, through a series of mishaps, enters the station. Then it's one scene after another, visually explicit and always funny with misunderstanding and confusion, that leads to the story's end when Miss Charlotte disappears with only a letter to tie up her latest adventure.

From A Funny Sort of Minister by Dominique Demers, illus. by Tony Ross

Complemented with the illustrations of well-known British artist Tony Ross, A Funny Sort of Minister will tickle young readers with its cheerful yet silly circumstances while they applaud Miss Charlotte's recognition of the value of learning outside the box, and the classroom.

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I encourage young readers who are looking for funny early chapter books to consider reading the whole series (two of which I have reviewed):

The New Teacher (2016)

The Mysterious Librarian (2017)

The New Football Coach (2019)
A Funny Sort of Minister (2020)

The New Football Coach

Written by Dominique Demers

Illustrated by Tony Ross

Translated by Sander Berg

Alma Junior (Alma Books)

978-1-84688-435-1

96 pp.

Ages 6-9

May 2019

Miss Charlotte is back! The astounding woman who touched young lives with her unorthodox ways in The New Teacher (2016) and The Mysterious Librarian (2017) has returned and this time she has been recruited to coach the Black Duck Brook Football Club whose headmistress Paulette Pesky in in competition with her twin Yvette, headmistress at Blueberry Bay. In a turn of events, always the norm with Miss Charlotte, the question of "Who will win?" becomes "Does it matter as long as we're having fun as a team?"

The narrator of The New Football Coach is Jeremy who is hopeless at football, or soccer for North American fans, but whose father, owner of a Sports Plus store, is determined that his son will play. When Miss Charlotte comes along and begins her lessons with how to lose and talks to her football, whom she calls Anatole, top scorer Fred Ferocio ridicules her approach but, for the first time, Jeremy is enjoying himself. After she invites new team members, including Jeremy's non-athletic friend Billy Bungalow and others whom Fred classifies as rubbish, to join, Miss Charlotte's coaching involves the kids getting to know their own footballs and developing their own strategies as well as offering them a special and delicious drink called smalalamiam. Will it be enough for them to win their match against Blueberry Bay?

Miss Charlotte has the right idea about playing team sports.  She recognizes that

the best team is not the one which scores the most goals. It is the team that has the most passion, the most enthusiasm, the most positive energy. (pg. 51)

Any team could benefit from this wisdom and the Black Duck Football Club does as well. The other team may be all about the drive to win, even deliberately injuring a competitor, but they have nothing on Jeremy's team of have fun pushing forward with song, gymnastics and secret codes.

Dominique Demers's Miss Charlotte books, originally written in French, are filled with silliness and wisdom, lessons and heart. They are ideal for early readers, blending fun storytelling with positive messages. For young children trying to learn right from wrong, Dominique Demers's Miss Charlotte provides the right kind of guidance. It may be somewhat unconventional, not unlike Mary Poppins, but Miss Charlotte demonstrates that doing things differently may actually be better and, with the hype and intensity shown by some players, parents and coaches when it comes to sports, she seems to get it right.

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n.b. For French-language readers, there are several editions of this series available, including one from Québec Amérique with seven volumes.

The Mysterious Librarian

Written by Dominique Demers

Translated by Sander Berg

Illustrated by Tony Ross

Alma Junior (Alma Books/Bloomsbury)

978-1-84688-415-3

79 pp.

Ages 6-9

June 2017

Reading this translation of Dominique Demers' original La Mystérieuse Bibliothécaire (Québec Amérique, 1994) is like being transported to another time and place, one in which children are children, not junior adults, and books are vehicles of imaginative transport.  There are no cell phones or e-book readers or computers or any of the technology that makes life faster and connections immediate.  It's a time when a woman can appear out of nowhere and become The Mysterious Librarian of the small town of Saint-Anatole and no one can start researching her on the internet.  Simpler, easier times.

When Miss Charlotte appears at the office of Mayor Peevish to apply for a position of librarian, a position unfilled for 30 years, he hires her.  Miss Charlotte "who was very tall and very skinny and seemed to come out of nowhere ... wearing a massive hat and a long blue dress, which was quite elegant, although it had seen better days" (pg. 3) takes her position very seriously, cleaning the broom-closet of a library, taking an inventory of the books and resident spiders and mice (who become pets) and requesting additional funds for the purchase of new books, to replace those she deemed "as disgusting as old, overcooked broccoli." (pg. 16)

She imagined fabulous books, books that make you laugh, cry, shiver and dance.  Books that take you to the far-flung corners of the earth.  Books that tickle your brain, touch your heart and lift your spirits. (pg. 15)

Leo, a boy whose mother owns the pet store, meets Miss Charlotte when she comes in for spider and mouse food, and suspects she is the odd woman his friend Marie had told him about at summer camp (see the first book in the series, The New Teacher, 2016).  Intrigued, he visits Miss Charlotte at the library, fortuitously as he finds her seemingly unconscious on the floor of the library.  Leo realizes that she is alive but cannot be roused because she has become so involved in the book that she has been sucked in.  Reading aloud helps bring her back.

Unconventional as she is, Miss Charlotte wants to bring readers to the books, so she encourages the children at the school to visit the library.  Although they also witness Miss Charlotte in her sucked-into-a-book state, the library becomes a reading home to the children who take on the tasks of feeding a menagerie of animals, bringing in tents and blankets and other comforts, and helping with miscellaneous library chores.  But when Miss Charlotte cannot be roused from her reading of Beauty and the Beast, the children, led by Leo, find the means to help her back.

Dominique Demers is an award-winning Quebec author of picture books, chapter books, young adult and adult books, having written well over fifty books.  Because they are primarily French-language books, I have not had the opportunity to review any on CanLit for LittleCanadians so I am delighted to review this translation of The Mysterious Librarian here.  The Mysterious Librarian is charming and innocent and makes me long for libraries in which reading was everything.  We have gone so far into making libraries places of entertainment, with makerspaces and more, that the library and librarian of The Mysterious Librarian are refreshing and inviting, though many would say old-fashioned.  Maybe Miss Charlotte and her library are out of fashion but I like to think of them as classic, elegant and exemplary.  Having Tony Ross, who has illustrated books penned by Roald Dahl and Astrid Lindgren as well as the Horrid Harry, Amber Brown and Dr. Xargle series, is brilliant.  There's that lightness and gentility of line that conveys the essence of Miss Charlotte and her mission to encourage reading.

From The Mysterious Librarian 

by Dominique Demers 

illus. by Tony Ross

Miss Charlotte would love to have The Mysterious Librarian in her library for the children.  Your children can read The Mysterious Librarian themselves but, if you do read it aloud to them–and I encourage teachers and parents to do so–try not to laugh too much when the bully Martin wants a book with bare bottoms in it (and gets a book about a pig) and try not to get sucked in, unless you have someone nearby to get you out.