Based on Abouet’s childhood memories of growing up in the port town of Abidjan (which also formed the basis of her award-winning “Aya of Yop City” books for older readers, which have been translated into 15 languages), the rapid-fire, action-packed tales are wild and antic. Translated from French, it’s a collection of 21 six-page comics about a little girl in Ivory Coast, and it is utterly unputdownable. We just can't get enough of them and like many of our #Booky100Keepers - particularly on the comic side of the house - these are brilliant if you have a reluctant solo reader who wants the added impetus of fantastic stories to draw them into a real love of reading.I reviewed this for the NYT last week but here's the gist:ĭang, this book feels new, daring, exciting and singular. How people live day to day, what kids do at school, what they do for fun - but brilliantly entertaining and rib-ticklingly funny. You really do feel like you're seeing a piece of African township life in every strip. What we weren't prepared for was how immersive these stories were. Full of movement, detail, brilliant (and extremely funny) dialogue, and characters that stick in the memory from Akissi herself to her long-suffering parents, her (teasing) brother Fofana and her school pals. The first collected volumes of stories were translated by Flying Eye Books back in 2013, and we had a long wait for more - but it was well worth it (a further third volume of Akissi stories is coming from Flying Eye this year, and we just can't wait - in fact we may come kicking and screaming out of retirement just to talk about it if it arrives after we've gone!).

'Akissi' tells the story of a little girl living in Africa, largely based on Marguerite's own childhood before she moved to Paris.Īkissi is a kick-ass ball of energy who doesn't seem to sit still for more than 5 seconds, is usually up to mischief, usually drives her parents and teachers completely crazy, but quite often relies on the help of her friends (and her cute monkey sidekick Boubou) to get her out of mischief.

In the case of Marguerite Abouet and Mathieu Sapin, the creative gods were definitely smiling down on us all when they began to collaborate on their brilliantly funny comic strips, bringing 'Akissi' to the world and being a huge part of what convinced my daughter that comics were well worth investing her reading time in. Some creative pairings are legendary from the moment they put pen to paper, or cursor to word processor.

Akissi by Marguerite Abouet