The Lights of Paris – Émile at the World Fair

“The Lights of Paris – Émile at the World Fair” is a large-sized nonfiction picturebook for children 8+.

Émile and his mother Alice are visiting the famous world fair in Paris in the summer of 1900. Once on the ground, they get separated and Émile has to find his own way to the Electric Palace, where his father works – and meets some extraordinary people on the way: Loïe Fuller, american dancer in Paris, and Albert Robida, author and inventor. Together with them he has to solve the riddle why the electricity on the fair stopped working and all the lights, for which the exhibition is so famous, are going out. And of course he has to find his mother again!

The book has 40 pages and is richly illustrated with large-sized color illustrations, many of them depicting historical accurate attractions for which the Paris world fair of 1900 was famous, like the ‘Globe Cleste’ (a giant globe that you could walk up) or the ‘moving sidewalk’ (a transport system on the fair which consisted of many different wooden boards installed on wheels). A facts section collecting data and additional information about the phenomenom of the world fairs and a small course about Art Nouveau (the ‘new style’ that was apparent at the 1900 world fair) are closing the book.