The boundary between the world of dreams and the world of reality is more blurred than ever in Dreams, a new volume in the series La petite bibliothèque de Corinna. The seven short stories that make up this collection feature characters that are transported to Wonderland while they sleep. We meet Martinette who encounters giant animals while walking in the forest, and another little girl who meets the Easter Bunny. There is the story of a woman who walks and walks until she becomes a grandmother, and another of Leopold, a little boy, who discovers a mermaid beneath a puzzle piece depicting the blue waters of Istanbul.
For S. C. Bille, dreaming wasn’t simply marvellous escapism, it also offered the possibility to appreciate some of the mysteries of animals and nature that all too readily escape our attention. For Dreams, it was the turn of the young Swiss artist Meryl Schmalz’s pencil to enter into dialogue with the Valaisan writer’s pen. The gentleness and generosity of Meryl Schmalz’s illustrations give the entire collection of short stories the quilted atmosphere of dreams – a beautiful moment of poetry and fantasy.
