''Martine'' is the title character in a series of books for children originally written in French by the

Belgians Belgians ( nl, Belgen; french: Belges; german: Belgier) are people identified with the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe. As Belgium is a multinational state, this connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultur ...

Marcel Marlier and

Gilbert Delahaye Gilbert Delahaye (19 March 1923 – 6 December 1997) was a Belgian author. He is best known for the ''Martine'' books, a series of illustrated children's stories he prepared with artist Marcel Marlier. In popular culture His book, ''Marti ...

and published by

Casterman Casterman is a publisher of Franco-Belgian comics, specializing in comic books and children's literature. The company is based in Brussels, Belgium. History The company was founded in 1780 by Donat-Joseph Casterman, an editor and bookseller or ...

. The first one, ''Martine à la ferme'' (''Martine at the farm''), was published in 1954, followed by 59 other books, which have been translated into many different languages. The book series has sold about 100 million copies and is one of the best-selling book series. When the author Gilbert Delahaye died in 1997, Jean-Louis Marlier, the son of Marcel Marlier, continued to write the stories. The series ended in 2011 when the illustrator Marcel Marlier died at the age of 80. The last book is the 60th, ''Martine et le prince mystérieux'', published in 2010. Two video games were released in Europe based on the character; however, the character was renamed "Emma" for English-speaking audiences in Europe and "Debbie" for the U.S. market. The games are based on the first and eighth books respectively. The games were recently announced for the U.S.''Aspyr announced new Nintendo DS titles''
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Albums

References

French children's books Female characters in literature Child characters in literature Characters in children's literature Literary characters introduced in 1954 Novels adapted into video games {{child-lit-char-stub