Development of Gallimard Jeunesse's Non-fiction Collections 'Decouvertes' : a Long-term Editorial Strategy

The main objective of this study is to reconstruct the long-term strategy of Gallimard Jeunesse, a major French publisher of books for children and youth, which has consisted of a constant planning, restructuring and revitalisation of more than a dozen collections and series published under the label of 'Decouvertes' from 1983 until today. The history of this wide-ranging project - one of the largest publishing project of the last decades - provides a picture of the evolution of the publication model of contemporary non-fiction books for children. We will therefore focus on the size of the analysed collections, the evolution of their editorial form and texts - for example, the presence and function of illustrations and/or auxiliary parts of the books - as well as the age of their readers, the relationship between translations and French production, and international and inter-institutional co-publishing ventures. Presenting the most interesting and innovative examples of typographic and graphic solutions implemented by the publisher will also provide important information, as these solutions have been widely imitated.