Square 144

When Lia’s mother gives her a brand new box of coloured chalk sticks, she starts to draw a long game of hopscotch snaking along the sidewalks. So she’ll never get lost again.

Having barely finished her first squares, she plans to makes a complete tour of the city. But who is this man blocking her project?

A tender and realistic look at others. A perfect book for discussions about others and about generosity. From the author of The Gardener Who Planted Books and the illustrator of The Alleyway. With its transparent pages, this book leaves room to dream…

​Themes: homelessness, city, friendship

The Author:

Graduate in recreology from the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières, Nadine Poirier published her first title in 2006, entitled Olga, the onion peel girl. She was awarded the 2013 AQPF-ANEL prize for her novel Adios. Since 2010, she has devoted herself solely to writing, while also promoting reading in schools and libraries across French-speaking Canada. Nadine has participated twice in the “tournée délire” in British Columbia, as well as the tour Lire à tout vent.

In 2016, a thousand groups in schools and libraries received her visit. With us, she has published The Gardener Who Planted Books, already at three reprints.

​The Illustrator:

When she was small, Geneviève Després played with trucks, balls and pencil crayons. She jumped, climbed and was always moving. This hasn’t changed much, apart from not playing with trucks anymore… She also practices several sports, loves traveling, always has plenty of projects on the go and never stays still.

She was lucky to live with her little family in France and in Italy. It’s there that she decided to focus on youth illustrations. Since her return to Quebec in 2007, she has illustrated children’s picture books with great pleasure. She uses various materials (tapestry, cardboard, paper craft) for her illustrations and alternates between goulache and acrylic paint, also using pastels and wooden pencils. She would like to begin writing her own stories and to be published to the ends of the earth!

She now lives on the south bank of Montreal with two sons, her partner and all kinds of birds and squirrels who watch her draw through her window. With D’eux, she has illustrated The Alleyway, which has been a success in libraries.