A print run of nine hundred thousand copies scheduled for the week of March 10 has been abruptly canceled. The comic adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, a story that gained fame in the 18th century and illustrated by cartoonist Jul, was intended for all fifth graders in France but will not be published. The artist voiced his concern over what he termed “unprecedented censorship.”
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This book was part of an initiative launched in 2017 aimed at promoting reading among children by providing them with an illustrated classic before they transition to middle school. Previous selections included The Fables of La Fontaine, Homer’s The Odyssey, and in 2024, Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees, which was chosen “in the context of climate change” and illustrated by Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet. This year’s selection was Beauty and the Beast, based on the version by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. The tale is widely recognized, especially since adaptations by Jean Cocteau and Disney: it follows a young girl named Belle who sacrifices herself to save her father, condemned to death for picking a rose in the Beast’s domain. The Beast spares Belle and brings her to his castle, where she discovers that beneath his monstrous exterior lies a man cursed by a spell.
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