The French duo Madame Monsieur sang at Eurovision 2018 a moving song called Mercy. The lyrics were based on the true story of baby Mercy who was born in the middle of the Mediterranean, on a rescue vessel, after her mother Taiwo was picked up from a refugee boat. With these lyrics the duo won The Eurostory Best Lyrics Award.

During an interview that Eurostory had with Émilie Satt and Jean-Karl Lucas (Madame Monsieur)  the idea was dicussed of making the song into a picture book. Illustrator Saskia Halfmouw joined the project and the publishing house of De Eenhoorn (Belgium) agreed to publish the book.

Now the book – with Dutch text – is there. The big book presentation we planned is obviously cancelled – because of the COVID-19-virus – but take a look at an example of the beautiful spreads (left).

More good news: the rights have been sold to the French publishing house Steinkis. The book will probably come out in French in the beginning of May.

The book contains, apart from the illustrations and the text, an epilogue, written by Émilie, which tells the whole story of Mercy the girl and Mercy the song. And: the full writer’s royalties directly go to Mercy and her mother Taiwo.

MERCY, ZO HEET IK, language: Dutch. 32 pages, 15,95 euro.
Buy this book at your local bookshop, or here or here.