Back in 1970, my parents and I lived in Boston, Mass. for a couple months, renting a house from a branch of a prominent Cambridge family. Among the amusements available in the property for nine-year-old me were a shelf of children's books including Pouf et Noiraud and Pouf et Noiraud Bricoleurs. I could not read French then (and can read it now only with my Larousse at hand), but the illustrations of the white cat, Pouf (Puff) and black cat, Noiraud (Inky or Smokey) doing stupid things with stupid expressions on their faces were worth many funny words.

Down through their history, most children's books have been crap: cheap, defective baubles that are meant to amuse at a few bedtimes and then be forgotten and discarded, but these two Pouf et Noiraud books were impressive enough to work their way into the vast clutter of such things in my memory.

Decades passed and along came Google and Ebay (as good an on-line research tool as any) to which one can repair when one stumbles over that mental clutter and wonders "What was this I found and stored here long ago?" As it turns out, Pouf and Noiraud were the creations of Pierre Probst, Alsacian by birth, who died in 2007.

As it also turns out, Probst's work left an impression on many other juvenile readers who, as adults seeking to relive the delight of reading Probst-illustrated books, pay big bucks for copies in nice condition. The editions in languages other than French are particularly rare.

Not being so interested as to want to invest in old collectible kid's books, I was glad to run across this recent French volume about Probst, part of a series called Les 100 Plus Belles Images..., and available from Amazon.Fr for about 17 Euros. I doubt that a version in English will ever be issued.

Born in 1913, Pierre Probst started out as a commercial artist drawing catalog illustrations, posters, labels and calendars. He set down his share of Paris street scenes and his love of animals and French history came through in pictures he drew for serious kids' books on those subjects.

However Probst is best known for his cartoon-like pictures and stories of a little girl named Caroline (Caroleen) and her anthropomorphic animal friends which included Pouf and Noiraud. Dressed in red overalls, Caroline was the "anti-Madeline" of French children's literature. She had her own car, her own house and she travelled all over the world and throughout history without adult supervision. The Caroline books were published by Hachette (which now owns Time-Warner) as part of their Grands Albums Roses (Big Red Albums) series, large-format volumes that displayed Probst's sumptuous spreads nicely. Around the 1980s, he re-illustrated the whole Caroline series, so there are early and late versions.

A classic children's book is well-crafted, memorable and created as much for adults as it is for children. Adults are the ones who buy the books.

The comedy in the Caroline illustrations is very much for grown-ups: Caroline trying to find the correct key to open a locked gate in a fence that itself is long gone, the human, sometimes very French-human, poses and expressions of the animals, Noiraud throwing down an ace in a card game in the back of the space ship on the voyage to the moon. Probst's detailed pictures are filled with funny or otherwise notable things happening in every corner or in the background.

While it is less remarkable in France than it would be in the U.S., Caroline and her furry gang were also imbibers. In a picnic scene, a bottle of Brut Premiere Cuvee chills in a tub of ice water. A Hachette catalog scene shows Pouf struggling with a corkscrew while Noiraud estimates the contents of a dry gin bottle.

Les 100 Plus Belles Images de Pierre Probst is a nice little survey, but it leaves one hoping that a larger collection of this genius's work, with perhaps multi-lingual text, will one day be published.

Copyright 2009 by Neal J. Conway

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