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Père Castor is a book collection from the publisher Flammarion, who published since 1931 books for children from 1 to 10 years old.

= Creator =

The creator of the collection is Paul Faucher (1898-1967), pioneer of Progressive Education, who launched in 1927, the collection Éducation with the same editor. He was passionate by the thesis of the Czechoslovakian pedagogue Lida Durdikova, and by her associated compatriot Frantisek Bakule. Lida Durkidova signed Pére Castor’s albums with the only name Lida; she will marry Paul Faucher in 1933. Breaking with the traditional conception of the cardboard art album, conceived as a gift of gifts where art does not free itself from luxury. Faucher's collection is intended for all children, so that it is quickly supported by the school. His paper albums have a soft cover and stapled pages that desacralize the book object. They have different formats depending on their literary and graphic objectives. Faucher calls on highly talented illustrators, some of whom are part of the Russian avant-garde movement: Hélène Guertik, Feodor Rojankovsky, Alexandra Exter, Nathalie Parain, G. Tcherkessof, N. Altman and Ivan Bilibine. In 1946, after the publication of about a hundred albums, Paul Faucher opened the Centre de recherche biblio-pédagogique de l'Atelier du Père Castor and the following year, the École du Père Castor. = Description =

Nearly 2,000 books in this collection are currently distributed in bookstores. The most sold recently are: the classic albums, but always re-released, Roule galette by Natha Caputo and Pierre Belvès, and, by Gerda Muller and Paul François, Les Trois petits cochons and Les Bons Amis ; more recent junior novels, often historical novels: Louison and Monsieur Molière by Marie-Christine Helgerson (2001), Double murder at Jacqueline Mirande Abbey (1998), Le Coupeur de mots by Hans Joachim Schädlich and Jeanne Etoré (1990), L'Œil d'Horus by Alain Surget (1999), le Col des mille larmes by Xavier-Laurent Petit (2004); imagiers, including Mon imagier du Père Castor à la maison de Magdalena Guirao-Jullien (2004) and l'Imagier du Père Castor by Anne Bozellec, Christian Broutin and Kersti Chaplet. = Collection =

In 1948, Paul Faucher launched the Children of the Earth collection, aimed at children aged 7 to 12, with the first title Apoutsiak le petit flacon de neige, by Paul-Émile Victor. Then come the discovery of the lifestyle of a Pygmy child (Mangazou), based on the accounts of a researcher from the Musée de l'Homme, Raoul Hartweg, then a young Indian (Amo) in 1951. Then followed Jan de Hollande, Gregoire, a small peasant from the Middle Ages, in 1959, the little Italian Antonio in 1961, the Antillais Féfé in 1962, Louis du Limousin', written by Andrée-Paule Fournier and translated into the langue d'oc by Maurice Robert, in 1972. For the youngest, Père Castor has made himself since 1952 a speciality of the imagination to encourage the child to discover the world around him. Some albums have become classics of the children's book (Roule galette, Michka, La vache orange, Marlaguette, Mélanie souris, Les Bons amis...) and have been regularly reissued since 1989, accompanied by audio cassettes and then audio CDs. They have even been adapted into cartoons under the title Les belles Histoires du Père Castor. The objective of the collection, divided into "first readings" and "second readings", is to accompany children towards autonomous reading. The timeless success of the collection prompted, in the 1980s, the publisher to develop in parallel four collections of novels under Castor Poche: Castor Benjamin, from age 3, books from 32 to 48 pages with colorful illustrations Castor Cadet, from the age of 7, addressing current topics and subjects close to everyday life (friendship, tolerance, competition ...) Castor Junior, from the age of 10, deals with a lot of subjects, life in other countries etc. this collection takes up themes dear to the Children of the Earth collection. Some black and white illustrations support the reader's attention. Castor Senior, a link between children's literature and classical literature. Texts of famous authors like Andrée Chedid, Troyat etc. Some titles from the Castor Poche collection appearing in the reference bibliography of the Ministry of National Education. = Père Castor’s Spirit =

After Paul Faucher's death in 1967, his son François succeeded him until his retirement in 1996. He was replaced by Hélène Wadowski, from Nathan Publishing. The Association des Amis du Père Castor was founded by François Faucher in 1996, upon his retirement. Its goal is to "give each child the desire to grow and to undertake with enthusiasm" (François Faucher). She also devoted herself to the development of La Maison du Père Castor, which was initially to be installed in the Forgeneuve mill in Meuzac near Limoges and to the reissue, at an artisanal rate, of facsimiles of old albums. La Maison du Père Castor became a media library, which was finally created in 2006. This one is built on the Faucher family's property, facing the Forgeneuve pond, but the mill has remained in its original state. Intended to collect the archives of the editions of Père Castor and Paul and François Faucher, the media library also presents regular exhibitions and organizes activity workshops for children, in the spirit of Père Castor. In addition, it has an "adventure playground" bordering a wood and a stream, including a vegetable labyrinth, a burrow, an orchard, a vegetable garden, a apiary and an outdoor area for eating. Père Castor's media library as a public reading library relays, in Paul Faucher's words, "the poetry of reality and the wonder of nature" that characterize the albums in Père Castor's collection. The Association des Amis du Père Castor also republished the founding texts of Paul Faucher, Frantisek Bakulé and some works by researchers from the archives of the multimedia library, but also albums dating from the 1930-1950s that have become impossible to find, in identical reproductions (facsimiles), whose some thirty titles are available. La Maison du Père Castor closed in 1961, but one of his teachers, Nina Rist, tried to continue the experiment in Antony. In 2018, UNESCO included the "Père Castor Archives" (documents related to the launch of the collection, original drawings, correspondence, etc.) in the international Memory of the World register. = Adaptation =

Père Castor inspired an animated television series in 156 episodes of 6 minutes, entitled The Stories of Father Castor, directed by J. Cubaud and P. Moreaux. The first broadcast takes place in 1993 on France 3 and Canal J. It is rebroadcast on France 5 in Zouzous since 2011.

= Sources =