Svjetlana and Dreams About Flying
Telling a story about a girl obsessed with flying and her (almost) magical book, the author blends fiction with facts about three Croatian inventors. In a playful way he switches between worlds: following a detail in her garden – a ladybug, a butterfly, a star – Svjetlana slides into a moment in the life of the inventor she was reading about. Subtle changes in style mark every transition into the world of inventors’ drawings, imaginatively expanding the space of the girl’s home and family.
Book #3344
Why do Meerkats Look at the Sky?
Pepe is a very curious meerkat. He knew the animals and the plants, and everything that surrounded him and was within his reach, but it was not enough.
One day the Earth seemed too small for his great curiosity and a new world opened for him when he looked up at the sky.
The author tells us in this first book of the saga of Pepe, the meerkat, a tender story about the enigmatic universe of which we are all part.
Three Travellers
A double debut: the renowned poet first time writing for children, a young artist first time illustrating a picture book. They tell a fairy tale about three brothers set to find a better place than their own, with subtle political subtext (there is a dragon at home who has to be dealt with). The illustrator finds original equivalents for all dimensions of the text, and manages even to imbed some citations from XX century art (Matisse, Hokney), thus enlarging the visual world of youngest readers.
Book #3346
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
Quince
The picture book “Quince” tells a fantastic story about four friends who, during the summer holidays, cross the stream near the village where they live, although it’s forbidden. On the other side, however, they find neither “trolls, nor bogeymen, nor tusk-owners, nor dragon’s nests”; they encounter creatures that are almost the same as humans but live in forest dwellings. One of them, the boy Quince (with the word for apple in his name), will make friends with the four children and will reveal to them the secrets of the forests. The author of the text, Lana Momirski, intertwined a number of motives in this framework story: some of the friends will move to a bigger city after the school holidays, and the central heroine will have to learn to deal with parting; playing with Quince, children will learn to respect nature and all its creatures; the forest world will become a kind of refuge, but also a space from which the problems of reality and personal existence can be seen more clearly. Subtle watercolors, by Ivana Koren Madžarac and Lana Momirski, evoke to the young reader all the liveliness, warmth and diversity of this mysterious forest world.
Book #3342
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
Of Bears and their Humans
The heroes of this illustrated book are teddy bears who turn out to be incredibly lively pets, always looking for some kind of mischief. They steal pancakes, sing and swim; they meet other animals in the city park; in the summer they go to the seaside and they never-ever sleep their winter’s sleep. The teddy bears’ little adventures are presented as short messages that their owner sends to her friend, and these messages very often acquire a visual power and a narrative dynamic which resemble silent cinema sketches. Once the whole picture is put together, however, one realizes that, from message to message, the author has taught him some important things on friendship and freedom… The book was illustrated and graphically designed by the young artist Hana Vrca who gave it a specific visual coherence and quality.
Book #3368
May Bug and Paper Boat
As a paper boat is floating carelessly on a city fountain, it is suddenly stirred by something that fell into it. The intruder turns out to be a cockchafer that couldn’t learn to fly. The two gentle creatures – the little boat that could so easily sink and the little bug that doesn’t fly – very quickly become inseparable friends. While floating on the fountain, they protect each other from little dangers and explore their surroundings that seem marvelous to them: balloons fly over their heads, people come to the fountain to toss coins into it and dream of luck, fireflies come to light up the night. And when real peril arises, it turns out that the little boat and the cockchafer have, along their way, already made friends who are ardent to save them. Sanja Lovrenčić thus creates a lyrical story about fragileness and the magic that resides in the world’s details which is accompanied by aquarelle illustrations of an almost minimalist quality by Mingsheng Pi.
Book #3334
Coco and Rico
This story, written and illustrated by Croatian writer and visual artist Nikolina Manojlović Vračar, follows the youth of two sibling roosters Coco and Rico. These two heroes were born on a farm owned by two music-lovers, and enjoyed a careless youth among other animals. But one day they were kidnapped from their home by two criminals who decided to turn them info fighting roosters and to make them participate in illegal rooster fights. When the day came for Coco to fight Rico, they had to use all their cunningness and intelligence to turn the fight into a travesty, escape and find their way home. By telling this animal adventure story, Nikolina Manojlović Vračar reflects on friendship, loyalty and nonviolent ways to subvert and contest violent behavior.
Book #3332
Hilda’s Return to the Henhouse
Hilda’s Return to the Henhouse, is a sequel to The Voyage of Aunt Hilda. On a very dark night the travelling chicken finally comes home, and has to answer all sorts of questions about her journey. But the henhause is not exactly the same as it was when she left: the spirit of adventure, however modest, entered the minds of her chicken friends…
Age:4-6
Blue Town, Yellow Town
Two towns on the two sides of a river – and an old bridge between them. When the bridge has to be repaired and repainted the citizens of the Blue Town want it to be blue, those from the Yellow Town want it to be yellow. There starts a peculiar quarrel, and develops out of proportion to its initial motive… until the day when the nature intervenes and reminds the citizens of both towns of the beauty of the multicoloured world.
(first edition : Alice Jeunesse, Belgium
White Ravens 2017)
All That… An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Verbs
Language itself inspired this unusual illustrated book. On every page a different verb: a little poem about aall that flies,all that shivers,all that hurts,all that floats, all that whimpersetc. Sixty funny, extraordinary poems that can encourage every child to think about words, are accompanied with sixty abstract illustrations that express a chosen verb in a manner that somewhat resembles the praxes action and informal painting. The book is useful as educational tool, it served as a basis for a number of art workshops with children, it is genuinely close to the worlds of childhood and it enhances the practice of reading for pleasure.
Selected among 25 best designed Croatian books in 2018.
Age: 6-9
Book #3352
Silly but Safe
Silly but Safe, a comic book of „practical tales“ for children, written and illustrated by Croatian artist Ivan Tudek, offers to the reader a handful of funny and edifying stories about friendship, mutual understanding and tolerance. The comic book format allowed Tudek to portrait human problems in dynamic and funny short cuts, and to develop a peculiar sort of goofiness through the visual aspect of his characters.
Age: 4-6
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
Gvalup and Other Stories
A girl riding a hare, a boy taking off to an adventure with a walking carob tree, a barge that riots against its crew, a little fawn adopted in an elfish family, a statue that decides to live near a pond, a star that falls from the sky before its time – Tamara Bakran’s stories are as varied as are her heroes. Little episodes from the everyday life of a child suddenly take a fantastic turn – a little girl crying that the water for her hair wash is too hot may summon a fire brigade, and a jump into a puddle may lead into a fairyland. The originality and merry rhythm of these stories catch the reader’s attention and offer the kind of pleasure that is the basic prerequisite for creation of a lasting interest in books and reading.
Age: 6-9