llustrations by Marie-Amélie Jurgens
Age: 5-9 ans
Pagination: 56 pages
Size: 210 x 148 mm
Binding: Saddle Stitch
Language: Français
Publication: December 2023
Free
ISBN: 978-2-38427-183-2 (printed book)/ 978-2-38427-184-9 (ePub)
Three-year-old Zélie becomes a big sister, but the baby has a heart defect. This book recounts the difficult journey of this baby, but above all of this big sister, sidelined and at the same time very present. Zélie’s fraternal position is tested, and she hopes, in silence from the adults, to get out of this life in hospital. The explanations are simple for children, because this is a child speaking to them, like a story shared at playtime.
At the end of the book, discussion keys accompany parents in their exchanges.
Sandrine Vatageot-Garnier, a clinical psychologist in pediatric and neonatal intensive care at the CHU in Dijon, wanted to use this story to put into words the suffering of siblings, and to provide a basis for discussion. Children are sometimes suffering without being able to express it. Parents, caught up in their own preoccupations and uncertainties, are more often than not aware of their children’s difficulties, but don’t know how to get the ball rolling.
Marie-Amélie Jurgens is a child psychiatrist who has been working with children in CMPPs for some twenty years. She has been drawing assiduously since childhood, cherishing and developing an artistic and musical practice that greatly helps her face the many challenges of today’s psychiatric clinic.
Instagram : @amelimelo.draws