My Name is Cloud Billy

Part initiation road trip, part landscape atlas, My Name is Cloud Billy is an ode to life and its diversity. It is a praise of long time travel and happy sobriety. It also questions the place of human beings in a primitive and wild environment.

 

As a young boy, Billy was destined by family tradition to become a cowboy, but one morning he decided to put down his colt and lasso and set off to discover the landscapes hidden behind his horizon.

Pampa, chaos, aven, blue hole, fjord, peat bog, taiga, mangrove... Throughout this long journey, the author invites us to marvel, just like our anti-hero, driven by this new taste for contemplating great natural spaces rather than conquering them.

In the second part we discover Billy's travel diary. The book provides a second reading of the adventure, a second encounter. We discover Billy in turn, hesitant, resourceful, an explorer... We discover, at his own pace, how he marvels, feels the landscape, lets go.

Finally, we discover Billy's Album of Wonders: images patiently collected, captioned and explained by Billy himself, once his journey was over. It's a place of knowledge: natural sciences, fauna, flora, minerals... His journey clearly changed him, and he became an amateur but passionate botanist and scientist.

 

IN THE MEDIA

 

"We've all heard stories about cowboys. But not about cowboys who do exactly the opposite of their ancestors. So it is with young Billy, who sets out on an anti-conquest of the West with the aim not of taking over wild territories, but of admiring them. Pampas, taiga, mangrove swamps, peat bogs, fjords... The cowboy without a colt or lasso enjoys the luxury of a round-the-world tour on foot under the banner of contemplation - and danger, rest assured. From canopy to abyss, the invitation to travel is supported by large plates reminiscent of school cartography. A richly documented logbook at the end of the story will delight the older children."  - Le Monde, Children's Books Picks of the Month (October 2024)

 

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

 

Yahho Japan!

• 2022 Sorcières Award - Non-Fiction
• 2023 BRAW Amazing Bookshelf (Bologna Book Fair)