Whales
Bastien Contraire

Dive into the world of whales and other cetaceans, a never-ending source of fascination!

The blue whale is the largest animal known ever to have existed. An extraordinary aquatic mammal, it is a source of fascination for humans all over the planet. But whales aren’t the only cetaceans, and all of them are celebrated in this non-fiction book for the younger ones: dolphins, killer whales, sperm whales... Here, readers will discover that the blue whale weighs just as much as forty elephants, that the vaquita is the size of a small bicycle, and also that the mother dolphin brings its newborn babies to the surface so that they have their first breath before suckling them, or that sperm whales can stay up to two hours underwater without breathing…

In this second non-fiction book following Dinosaurs, Bastien Contraire’s use of stencils and 3 Pantone colours produces original stylized shapes while providing accurate information.

Bastien Contraire
The author and illustrator

An autodidact, Bastien Contraire first developed his work through self-publishing, before dedicating himself to children’s books. It is by designing the covers of a fanzine that he co-edited that he tried out stencils, appreciated the imperatives of this technique and liked the game of superimposing layers of colours. Published in 2016, his first picture book, Les Intrus, displayed naturalist plates hiding an anomaly. It was followed by three board books, Animaux, Véhicules and Aliments. In 2020, he published Au Contraire at Albin Michel Jeunesse.

In parallel with his activity of author and illustrator, he designs exhibitions for children with an experimental and playful approach.