Chinese edition of Desarthe's book Dingo Et Le Sens De La Vie (Dingo and the Meaning of Life). [Photo provided to China Daily]

"I said because they are like children. ... They watch. I am a watcher because a writer is more of a watcher than a listener," she says.

"When you are in deep interaction, you don't have the right distance to capture anything or to command in an original way."

Desarthe's sympathy for people on the margins permeates her works for children.

"I walk very quick, but I am a slow thinker. I need time to think. So maybe that's why I am always more sympathetic to people who are like that, people who might feel estranged. That's children, and old people," she says.

At a recent discussion with young Chinese readers at the Institut Francais de Chine in Beijing, Desarthe said that the first book she wrote was about a "girl penguin" who is ashamed of herself because she feels cold.

"She lives among other penguins, but no one feels cold except her," she says.

In the picture book Les Freres Chats, she describes a cat who is good at playing golf but forbidden to enter a golf club that is exclusively for dogs.

At that interaction, a small girl asked Desarthe why the cat was forbidden to enter the club.

"It is a story about racism. There are many countries where at one point in their history, the majority excluded the minority. For instance, in the United States, for some time, golf clubs forbade black people (from entering)," she answered.