Papillons
By: Juliette Binet
Publisher: Les Grandes Personnes, France, 2025
Format: Hardback, with cut-outs
A game of intersecting gazes
Juliette Binet is an award-winning French illustrator that creates amazing books. Her newest title, Papillon, is no exception. This book is a visual experience that invites both contemplation, creativity and focus. It can be read as an ordinary book, but also used as a game of intersecting gazes, where there is no beginning and no end.
As the title on the paper cover states, this book is about butterflies, but beneath the cover is an illustration of the back of a woman´s head printed on the sturdy cardboard binding. We turn the page to see her face, with a butterfly beside her. The reader will observe both the resemblance and the differences between the species, and our gaze is drawn to the real eyes of the woman and the "eyes" on the wings.
At the end of the book is a man, pictured in the same way: His face on the endpaper, the back of his head on the cover. Because of the cut-outs that are placed exactly where their eyes are, the man and woman´s gaze is part of our reading of every page. The pages of the book are also filled with other cut-outs, cleverly designed so that one butterfly´s wings adorn anothers, with the culmination of the gorgeous, double-spread butterfly on the center spread.
The info-sheet that accompanies the books informs that the cut-outs are inspired by marquteries and magnificent pastel bug illustrations. Binet uses this inspiration to make the colorful and intricate butterflies. Her use of patterns makes the wings look like they are about to take off, as a reader you half expect them to fly off the pages.
Papillon comes with a paper cover where the title and peritext is printed, and with a separate info sheet. Both are removable, so that the book itself is completely wordless, embracing the exquisite visual experience it offers. Papillon is great for silent contemplation, but it is also a wonderful conversation- and learning starter: why do, for example, so many bugs and birds have eye-like patterns on their wings? The many areas of uses, from a visual game to an art experience to an intro to biology, makes it relevant for all age groups.
The publishers have done an amazing job, both with rendering the actual book completely wordless, but also with the heavy cardboard binding, and the quality of the paper, which makes reading the book also a pleasant tactile experience.
