AboNINAbles: beautiful (and monstrous) mother-daughter collaboration!

UPDATE DAY

Funny monsters that create and change endlessly; Here's a great way to make the creatures hiding under the children's bed less terrifying! Johanna Reynaud and her daughter Nina have concocted an all-cardboard interactive gamebook to stimulate the imagination.

Johanna, first of all, what is an AboNINAble?

It's a monster that was created by my daughter, Nina, and me. During the confinement, we were looking for activities. My daughter, who was five at the time, had a fascination with all things scary. I offered him to draw monsters, with the principle of the exquisite corpse – draw a head, fold the paper, draw the body, fold, etc. At the end, we discover a character created in collaboration. As I am an illustrator, I thought it was a good idea to take our drawings and rework them in digital format. It gave the AboNINAbles! 

Who are these monsters found in the album? And how is it to know that your friends will discover your own monsters?

There are about ten monsters in the album, but in total, we must have made about fifty. It will be a collection of books.

Nina: I feel happy, but also a little embarrassed that my friends and students in my class are going to see my book. It bothers me a little that my mother stuck a picture of the two of us behind the book.

Johanna: (Laughs)

It's a way, in a way, to make monsters less scary for toddlers?

Yes, and to develop creativity through it. An exercise like this, quite spontaneous, allows the child to realize that in a few minutes, a character can be created from scratch. At the logical level too, what is interesting is that you have to understand that you have to give the next person the opportunity to know where they should start their line.

What are you most passionate about in this project?

The collaborative aspect with my daughter. And not only with my daughter, because I had the opportunity to play the game with other children. I find it very interesting to have a monster that is half elaborate, half naive, in terms of the line. I have always drawn and I try to instill that in my daughter. The fact that my daughter could witness this and take over. How I followed in the footsteps of my mother, who is a painter! 

If there was a monster to represent both Johanna and Nina, what would it look like?< /strong>