From Mimi Cracra to The Crazy Alphabet: Agnès Rosenstiehl, 60 years of creation

The Donation

In 2025, Agnès Rosenstiehl donated 625 original plates—in a wide variety of formats and media—as well as a hundred preparatory works to the National Center for Children's Literature at the BnF, corresponding to the publication of 23 albums released between 1967 and 2022 by publishers including Éditions des Jumeaux, Des Femmes, Larousse, Gallimard, and La Ville brûle.

The exhibition in brief

Poker moves and strokes of genius: entering children's literature, 1966-1973

Agnès Pinsard (maiden name), wife of Gay until 1973, then Rosenstiehl, published De la coiffure in 1967 with Éditions des Jumeaux, a surprising and poetic album that dives into the imagination of a little girl with (too) short hair. Purity of line, freedom of tone, and the genius of childhood: three constants that would run through her later works, including La Naissance (1973) and Les Filles (1976).

Mimi Cracra and the Pomme d’Api years, 1966-2008: a childhood laboratory

Quickly adopted by the nascent magazine Pomme d’Api, Agnès Rosenstiehl refined a minimalist, instinctive, and colorful style there and, in 1976, invented Mimi Cracra, who became one of the magazine's most iconic heroines within a few years. Despite parents who were sometimes hesitant about her freedom of speech and action, young readers identified with this independent and resourceful little girl, in whom Agnès Rosenstiehl invested much of herself.
From 1985 onwards, editorial and audiovisual adaptations brought Mimi Cracra a popularity that partly explains her longevity. Her adventures, published in Pomme d’Api until 2008, are regularly reissued by Éditions du Seuil Jeunesse, and the attachment to the character remains strong for the generations who grew up with her.

Creating books that do not exist: the documentary years, 1977-2020

While Mimi Cracra remains Agnès Rosenstiehl’s most iconic work, it is only one stage among others in a particularly rich creative journey. As early as 1977, Larousse published her first two alphabet books, including Drôle d’alphabet ou les aventures d’une tarte aux pommes, in which the author features a band of mischievous children expressing themselves through onomatopoeia and alliteration. The following year saw the release of L’Alphabet fou ou le livre des syllabes sibyllines, a collection of tongue-twisters designed to be read aloud, which confirmed her singular talent for combining linguistic rigor with whimsy. Buoyed by this critical success, her documentary work gradually expanded to include numerous themes—algebra, figures of speech, dictionaries, travel, colors, civil rights—published by Larousse, Gallimard, and Thierry Magnier, testifying to her constantly renewed intellectual curiosity and inventiveness.

(Re)publishing Agnès Rosenstiehl: L’Alphabet fou ou le livre des syllabes sibyllines

An essential figure in children's literature, Agnès Rosenstiehl has seen many of her albums reissued throughout her career, including six since 2018 by Éditions La Ville brûle.

To mark the exhibition, Éditions de la BnF is reissuing one of her iconic albums, L’Alphabet fou ou le livre des syllabes sibyllines, with the author's cooperation. This reissue highlights the original plates deposited by Agnès Rosenstiehl at the BnF, supplemented by a few plates recolored in watercolor in the absence of the originals. The book is also enriched with an audio version, which allows listeners to hear the inimitable voice of Agnès Rosenstiehl practicing reading these assonances she wrote fifty years earlier.