The Crocodiles (and Know-It-All Bird)
Pika Vonična, one of Little Bells’ most productive picture book authors, is working on a series of picture books about animals since 2012. The four stories assembled in Crocodiles proved as particularly appealing to young readers: the endearing Jaroslav who shies water because he cannot swim, Strahimir who makes paper birds and looses them when the wind blows, Florian who is, unlike other crocodiles, never green, but changes colours from blue to white and red, provoke interest and compassion in the young reader. But in these stories everything ends well, and illustrations offer a lot to look at, even when the story is over.
Age: 4-7
The End of a Long Journey
In this short novel Michael Ende takes us for a journey across Europe, Asia, Africa, all the way to Hindukush. The story’s protagonist, Cyril Abercomby is an English aristocrat and the son of a 19th century diplomat. In his childhood he follows his father on diplomatic missions and when the father dies, Cyril inherits the family fortune and continues wandering across the globe in a pointless spleen. Although he had been enjoying the luxury of grand hotels and high society ever since his earliest childhood, Cyril is haunted for life by a feeling of non-belonging, of homelessness. But then one day, he finds his home – on a painting. Suddenly his voyages become purposeful: he must find the place depicted on the canvas, no matter the costs. This quest leads him to different atrocities and a final, suicidal, mission: neither dead, nor alive, Cyril finds his home in the space of his own imagination grafted upon a real geographical place. Michael Ende thus develops a dark, but lyrical story on alienation, the power of imagination and the workings of art. His text has been illustrated by the painter Dominik Vuković who visually represented the dark contours of this story that revolves around a painting.
Book #3363
The Flawless Mirror
The face of the heroine of this artist’s picture book is full of spots, her body full of hair, there’s the word “Fat” floating around her, her breasts are so little you can barely see them. But these aren’t flaws – despite the fact that a glamorous “face from a magazine cover” also finds its way into the story. Flaw as a concept simply does not exist for this mirror. Without hiding anything, and with an untameable smile, the heroine keeps looking at herself exactly as she is. No imposed beauty standards intimidate her. No threatening words („Carnegiea gigantea”!), nor horrendous images (monkey-like hairiness or a body too big for a bathtub) make her flinch…
Using humorous and expressive forms, the author of this book, Agata Lučić, invites readers – primarily young, female readers – to take a look in the flawless mirror and to accept their bodies such as they are, with a smile on their face.
Book #4904
The Four Seasons
Kao što već njegov naslov sugerira, ovaj je strip album čitav sagrađen oko izmjene godišnjih doba te sitnih dogodovština koje se uz njih vežu. Njegovi protagonisti – hrvatskoj publici dobro poznata ali zagonetna Zlatka, ribolovac i svemirski putnik Key te njegov galeb Yek, prepuštaju se gradnji snjegovića zimi, novim ljubavima u proljeće, skokovima u more ljeti, melankoliji ujesen. Oko tih dobro poznatih motiva Krešimir Zimonić plete profinjenu lirsku mrežu, gotovo uvijek utemeljenu u sugestiji: on nudi tek fragment događaja, bljesak uvida u raspoložen ja likova, nekad ironične, a nekad gotovo filozofske autorske izjave. Time nastaje bogat tekstualni predložak koji nikako nije ograničen na izmjenu replika likova – u Zimonićevom albumu progovaraju razni glasovi: nekad prirodne pojave, nekad obijesni galeb, a nekad sam pripovjedač. Ništa manje virtuozno nije izveden ni likovni pandan takvoj spisateljskoj tehnici: Zimonić se igra različitim stilovima, od gotovo impresionističkih kolorističkih rješenja do kolaža i likovnih referenci na popularnu kulturu. Tako nastaje bogata cjelina nekonvencionalnog sadržaja u kojoj se neprimjetno pretapaju male avanture, lirska raspoloženja i apstraktna razmišljanja o vremenu.
Book #2923
The Fox Sings in A Lovely Way
The first picture book written and illustrated by the young, but already renowned visual artist Ivan Tudek. His story about a harmonious world, disturbed by the intrusion of a howling bear, is told in a visual style inspired by comic books, in black and white (the picture book may also be used as coloring book).
Age: 4-6
The Lives of Troubadours
Sanja Lovrenčić’s book presents biographical texts by anonymous authors from the 13th and 14th century that depicted the lives of troubadours. Medival biographical texts about troubadours are a very old testimony about the interest that lives of artist awakened in their contemporaries. In a time where the only biographies written were those of saints and important rulers, poets are the only group of people that defy that rule – by being written about. Their biographies were written in a language that in medieval times, among others, was called “lenga d’oc”. Today this language is mostly referred to as Occitan, and it is considered to have been Europe’s first literary language after the classical period.
The Magic Eyeglasses
Sophia, the little heroine of this story, wants to help her mother to bake a cake. Mom tells her to fetch the cake pan from the storage room, but Sophia is afraid of that dark space – she’s so afraid that she doesn’t even dare to stretch her arm to turn the light on. But then comes her dad and gives her a pair of special eyeglasses – eyeglasses that make the world look different. And more than that! They not only change the look of things in darkness, but also give the person wearing them the ability to talk with animals. Looking through the magic eyeglasses, Sophia meets a spider in the storage room and a moth in her bedroom. As she opens a window, she sees a weasel and a saturnia moth in the garden. Her encounters with these creatures show that beings who look nice are not always nice – and vice versa. This warm and breezy story teaches young readers self-confidence, the importance of getting to know someone before making a judgment, as well as the fact that first impressions are not always reliable.
Book #4906
The Marriage Diaries
The edition that will thrill every classical music lover! The year is 1840, in the city of Leipzig; the young but already internationally famous pianist Clara Wieck and the still quite unknown composer Robert Schumann just succeeded in getting married, despite various obstacles. The day after the wedding, upon Robert’s whish, they start writing down all their needs and desires, joys and sorrows of matrimonial life. They take turns in writing, each of them covering the events of one week, at first with a lot of passion. Many celebrated musicians of the period pass through the pages of their double diary; Robert and Clara speak about art, home concerts, days and weeks filled with music, but they also speak about love. In these first years of their marriage, years that have been among the most productive for Robert and a sort of setback for Clara, life is good, but it isn’t without its’ own shadows…
The Pursuit of Winter
The Pursuit of Winter is the first text that a renowned Croatian poet wrote for children. The plot is triggered by the (unspoken) question: “Could something lovely become boring?” It obviously can, if it is only and always lovely, especially if the thing we are talking about is the weather. The picture book takes the reader – along with the animal protagonists, squirrel, wolf, deer, ants and birds – on a journey toward something absent but desired. And the miracle resides in the possibility to join forces and bring about the (unlikely) change.
The illustrations by Mingsheng-Pi make a perfect counterpoint to Kirin’s laconic and lyrical text. The illustrator received a Special Mention of the “Grigor Vitez” Award.
Age: 4-6
The Seven Cats
The Seven Cats is a collection of children’s texts by the great Russian avant-garde author Daniil Harms. As Harms worked under hard censorship, these texts form the main part of his oeuvre that was published during his lifetime (most of his “adult” texts were circulating only as manuscripts within underground circles). The Seven Cats encompass various prose miniatures, some longer stories but also children’s poetry. Throughout these various genres one can follow the celebrated absurdist humor of Daniil Harms which is, in these children’s texts, deprived of its cruel elements and becomes a means of transforming the very often glum everyday to an anarchic carnival. The book was illustrated by Vendi Vernić, a prized young Croatian visual artist whose stile corresponds perfectly with the avant-garde but still childish aspects of the literary text.
Book #3379
The Snakes of Nikonimor, Part I – The Palace and the Garden
The fantastical world of the mountains of Nikonimor, the southern shores of Yalma and Svardija, the Empire of Quadrifolium, the northern parts of Letinen with its great river and mystical rites is revealed through the story of the lovers, Arne the palace-builder, and Tisya, the flute player. In the first part of the Nikonimor trilogy, Tisya and Arne, trapped by cold, separated by a wasteland and wilderness and the slowly approaching cataclysm of the known world, attempt to see each other through the waters of a mysterious lake, and try to remember everything that preceded the hard winter. But the world around them, especially that on the northern borders, is not still…
The Snakes of Nikonimor, Part II – The Way to the Sea
In the second part of the trilogy by Sanja Lovrenčić the separated lovers Tisya and Arne travel and go through various ordeals.
Tisya is consciously trying to reach the sea, the White Town, the only place from where the ships still sail to the North. But her journey is long, leading her through the wilderness of the Dividing Chain, where she sees, for the first time, Those-Who-Yell-Together. With the help of the salt trader Margan she arrives in the Stone Cells, where she has some strange experiences and then travels on, further down the Yalma coast, where fires of danger are already burning…
At the same time Arne is with the remnants of the northern army of King Gurna, struggling through dangerous underground paths, where the mirror-people Vodjani lurk with their mirages; he does not know that at the end of this road another shore awaits him…
The White Cat
With this title we wish to offer the fairy tale lovers something beside the standard repertoire of Grimms and Andersen. Marie Catherine d’Aulnoy, a 17th century author, was the first to publish a fairytale in France. Many of her motives were taken over by other classics of the genre. However, d’Aulnoy stays original in her proto-feministic interest for female characters and her use of the techniques of bricolage. In herWhite Cat Madame d’Aulnoy weaves various fantastic elements into a rich narrative tissue, with the most prominent role for the refined court of cats, funny and appealing for the young audience. Illustrated by a debutant artist whose cats and dragons are a joy for the reader’s eye.
Book #3330
Three Tales from The Tale of Tales
Mala zvona is proud to present the first Croatian translation of a selection of stories from Giambattista Basile’s famousTale of Tales (Lo cunto de li cunti or Il Pentamerone)
Basile’s collection, written in the 17th century in Neapolitan dialect, served as an inspiration to numerous fairy tale writers over the centuries; Basile’s motifs can be traced through many famous collections, such as those written by Perrault or the brothers Grimm.
In these grotesque stories – which are by no means intended for children – Basile teaches the reader about virtue, vice, deception and love while using a flamboyant Baroque rhetoric. Our selection includes the following stories: The Enchanted Doe, The Flea and The Old Woman Who Was Skinned who were also used as a pretext for Matteo Garrone’s multiple award-winning movie Il racconto dei racconti.