I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I enjoyed this book about two boys who speak different languages.

I love the concept that every line swaps between English and French. And they are not translations of the line above, but the next sentence in the story. What a great challenge for the mind to swap languages. This would be a good test for someone wanting to be a translator.

As for the story, sadly there is there's no substance to Pierre & Paul: Avalanche! It's missing plot, excitement and, honestly, fun. Our leading two boys don't really do anything (expect eat) and no mountains are actually climbed (in imagination or reality). It just misses in so many ways.
The illustrations are not even that interesting to me. I'm not sure why exactly but they don't feel as whimsical as I think they should. Unfortunately Caroline Adderson has missed out here on what could be a really neat book. But it's dull plot and uninspiring characters leave me with a lot to desire.

<i>Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.</i>

This book is super cute and I will definitely be buying it for our library! I love that it's dual language, but not an exact translation side by side. Super creative and fun! I know our students will love it!

Paul and Pierre's friendship jumps off the page due to the bright, colorful illustrations and nonexistent language barriers. Paul speaks English and Pierre speaks French. As self-proclaimed explorers their mountain expedition is on hold while they make a sandwich. While I don't speak French I still thoroughly adored this story about food. Children will enjoy translating the French or English which will spark a desire to learn more languages. I also envision my Hispanic students finding similarities in the French language with Spanish. If this is the future of bilingual books count me in.

It has been a problem for a long time, there are just not enough books for children in the French immersion stream to access independently, especially those who have just entered the stream and are just taking up the French language for the first time. We need to support these learners and support their English reading as well.

In Pierre and Paul: Avalanche! Pierre and Paul are friends and explorers and they are off in the Himalayas climbing a very tall mountain, until they realize they forgot to pack snacks. So they climb down the hill to make themselves a delicious sandwich. Sandwich building gets a little involved until they have an enormous and very unstable sandwich. When it all comes crashing down they enjoy a delicious salad instead.

The illustrations in this book are so colourful and engaging and capture the imagination of any reader. The best part is the story is told in two languages, French and English, and totally accessible no matter your French comprehension. Simple sentences and an easy to follow storyline with French and English intermingling to create a fantastic resource for those children who are just beginning their French language learning

This was not what was expected. The execution was not all there. I adore bilingual books. But the current format makes the flow bumpy. It is hard to determine what to read first. And who is saying what.

Pierre & Paul: Avalanche is a cute story about two young explorers heading out on a grand adventure. They barely get started before they realize that they have forgotten to bring snacks. Quickly they head home and begin to build a sandwich. Unfortunately, the two explorers declare the sandwich to be too dull for their adventurous ways. Just then, Pierre & Paul decide to explore with their food and build the world's most adventurous sandwich ever!

Pierre & Paul: Avalanche is a story told from two different languages. What is unique about this story is that both languages carry the story further. Most dual-language stories are just a repetition of the primary language exactly. This is not the case with this story. Instead, the languages piggy-back off of each other, and even at times, the languages are utilized in isolation of each other.

The dual-language utilization makes this picture book a challenge! Readers are going go have to infer closely in order to follow the events of the story. I think this is a great trait of the story, and it offers a multicultural experience for readers.

Who knew making a sandwich could be such a great adventure? But, when you’re with your best friend nothing is as it seems. When Pierre and Paul decide to climb the Himalayas they realize they have gotten hungry. Good thing explorers always come prepared. Good thing one of them also has a refrigerator nearby to help them build a sandwich. A giant sandwich.

Initially, I believed the story was told in English and in French – separately, but on the same page. However, what I found was that the story actually switches back and forth between the two languages. When Paul asks what should be on the sandwich, Pierre answers in French. The story does a good job of teaching the words in both languages for some of the basic foods you might put on a sandwich. Of course, to make a giant sandwich the boys must put more and more non-sandwichy things on it, so there are more food names to learn than just lettuce or tomatoes.

For a non-French speaker some of the illustrations really helped with words I didn’t necessarily know. Other times, I wasn’t able to pick up on what was being said in the French portions. This book probably won’t work for everyone, but it will be a nice introduction to both languages for others. Plus, the illustrations are fun to look at as the sandwich gets taller and taller.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Oh my! What a wonderful book! I love books that intertwine languages and this one intertwines French and English brilliantly! I can't wait to read it to my 2 girls! Great illustrations and an engaging story about 2 boy explorers who are hungry...which makes for great french vocabulary that is understandable with the help of the pictures! Highly recommended!

The basic story is that two friends are trying to have an adventure together but they need to eat first.

Really, that is the story.

What makes the story interesting, is the back and forth in English and French about what sort of food to make for the journey, and how to eat it.

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/pierre-and-paul.png" alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5468" />

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/pierreand-paul-avalance.png" alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5465" />

I last took French back in High School, so that is 40 years ago or so, but I could get the gist of what Pierre was saying to Paul.

The French and English going back and forth wasn't the problem with this book. The problem is that the book was very boring. Still it tried, and the pictures are cute.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

This is a cute story told in French and English that helps kids learn a second language in a novel way. I'm used to books that say the same thing in both languages, but this one is unique in that each character speaks his own language. They communicate well and repeat each other a bit, so you pick up on the other language even if you don't speak it. It's also a cute story, in that the boys want to be explorers but first they make a sandwich and they make it ridiculously big with a ridiculous amount of things until it falls over. There are also vocabulary words kids will pick up because things like all kinds of ingredients are shown with both words for them.

My kids have been learning Spanish for the last year, but if they were learning French I would definitely include this in their library. I'd love to see more language-learning books for kids in this style, and I love that this works equally well for kids learning French or learning English.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

Pierre & Paul tells the story of two friends with imagination. Read the book and look at the illustrations to get a sense of the avalanches at hand. This is a simple, amusing story of two young boys that switches between English and French. There are contextual clues to help with the language that a child may not speak. The book provides a way to expose children to bilingual text. I especially liked the illustrations.

Thanks to NetGalley and the ublisher for this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is written in both French and English and was very difficult to read to my 6 year old. She asked me to stop reading and pick a different book. I had to read this one after bedtime stories with her so that I could review it.

The book's use of both French and English was very hard to translate. I took 4 years of French in high school and could pick out some words, but I was still guessing at times. Trying to read a story where actual plot points are written in a language that you don't know is really hard. I would not suggest this for a child unless they were fluent in both languages.

The illustrations were nice.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a very simple--almost to the point of being ridiculously boring--story that's basically just a vehicle for teaching language. As such, I don't really see it having broad appeal beyond the classroom.

Pierre and Paul are friends. They're also explorers. They imagine they're climbing the Himalayas. But nobody remembered to bring a snack! So they go to Pierre's house to make one. They decide to make a sandwich, which ends up so big that they end up climbing it like a mountain. But then the mountain collapses... into a salad.

Like I said, the story is pretty weak. The value in this comes from the inclusion of both French and English to tell the story. The languages switch back and forth, in what is probably a natural way for bilingual readers. I can see this being of use in French-immersion classrooms, or for children who are learning both languages.

That said, however, it's going to be confusing for readers whose main language is English. Not only do you have to contend with all the French words, you also have to adapt to the totally bizarre (to those used to English, anyway) punctuation. Extra spaces around the punctuation marks, dialogue where the speech attributions aren't set off, and em dashes for continuing dialogue are bound to be confusing for those not familiar with these conventions. I took years of French immersion in elementary school, and continued learning up to the university level, and I still have trouble with sentences like this:

« Ça ne fait rien, dit Pierre. Il prend un grand bol. Voilà ! »

In English, it would be as if I wrote:

" It doesn't matter, says Pierre. He gets a big bowl. Voilà ! "

Aside from the punctuation weirdness, there's that action sentence right in the middle that's not spoken and isn't set off in any way. French speakers are surely used to this, but English speakers won't be. The fact that there are also sentence fragments that are half English and half French doesn't help:

Ham and fromage.

Laitue et cucumber.

Zut alors! Talk about making a monolingual reader's brain hurt.

So, like I said, this would probably work best for kids who are learning the language or are already bilingual. The weakness of the story, though, might bore those who are already fluent in English and French.