Soup with Goldfish

Familiar to us from the previous books in the series “The Adventures of the Sherbourne Family”—“Omelet with Sugar” and “Flying Cheese”—the Jannet brothers and their parents have moved to Toulon. Dad, of course, is a jack-of-all-trades, and Mom always has everything under control, but it seems the year ahead will be anything but easy. After all, Jean A. instead of preparing for a test has secretly gone to a party, Jean B. is terrified of going to a new school, and together with Jean C. they declare war on the mysterious Castors…
The author of this book, the Frenchman Jean-Philippe Arrou-Vignod, is one of those very six “Jean” brothers the story will be about. More precisely—Jean B., the second oldest. From early childhood, Arrou-Vignod loved reading. In 198.4 he published his first “adult” novel, for which he received the “Best Debut” award, and a few years later released a second book—this one for children. Today, Arrou-Vignod, the author of about thirty books, heads the children’s literature department at the largest independent French publishing house, Gallimard. He created his series “The Adventures of the Sherbourne Family,” so loved by children and parents in France, together with the well-known illustrator Dominique Corbasson, whose works can be seen in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Madame Figaro, and Vanity Fair. In spirit, “The Adventures of the Sherbourne Family” reminds one of the famous “Little Nicholas” by René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé: the heroes are the same cheerful, restless boys who are forever trying to get into some trouble. “Fish Gold Soup” (2007) is the third book in this series.