Above: illustration by Mel Dietmeier (from my high school French text book)

I cannot believe I wrote this post a year ago. When I put it on Facebook, I hadn’t thought much about it. But lo and behold Mark from my high school French class (and just about every other class I had growing up) kindly contacted me to tell me he still had the books. Not only did he still have the books, but if I wanted them, those books could be mine! And so thanks to Mark, those books are now mine! They make me so happy.

(click to enlarge)

Most importantly, I finally know that Mel Dietmeier is the illustrator. I still cannot get over his loose illustrations and the levity they bring to the often dull phrases of basic language learning.

I couldn’t find much about him other than that he had written and illustrated two other children’s books: Someone is Missing  and Potato. Thank you, my vintage book collection (in blog form).

I took a few more photos of some other favorite pages to share with you. Amusez-vous bien!

Too much champagne to hear the phone ring (drin…drin…)!

She plays a mean cello!

This is the only one I’ve pictured here, but tennis appears frequently throughout these books, as if it’s the main leisure activity of France. Look at these daydreams!

What a perfect depiction of a bad mood!

This restless night might be my favorite page, maybe because it has a little bit of Edward Gorey’s spookiness to it!

Poor Olivier…what a catastrophe!

Thank you, Mark, for bringing these books back to my life!

Roll the credits!