Thursday, May 2, 2013

Strong as a Bear



This year, as you may know, I was unable to attend the Bologna Children's Book Fair.
But thanks to the generosity of friends and publishers, and a trip to the very well stocked
Florentine children's book store Cuccumeo, I do have some wonderful new books
to share with you over the next weeks. First of all, once again I am very grateful 
to Topipittori for introducing into our country some of my favorite European illustrators
(besides working with some excellent Italian ones). This new beautiful new volume is a reprint
of Stark wie ein Bär, the 2012 award winning book by the German illustrator Katrin Stangl.




I first took notice of Stangl in 2009 when another invaluable Italian publisher, 
Corrainipublished The Musicians of Brehem. I saw her work again at the 2011 Illustrators Exhibition
 in Bologna, and her striking, bold style and two-color linocut technique again made an impression.




Forte comme un orso is an explosion of colorful vitalityThe simple text enunciates 
a list of animal qualities that children will easily identify with, and the full page
 illustrations will easily delight adults too. The book's vibrant chromatic quality
was achieved thanks to a printing process using four different pantone colors. 




4 comments:

  1. I've always wanted to attend that Children's book show. It would be a great excuse to go to Italy in the Spring. I'm so excited you managed to get new books from it, even if you couldn't attend it this year. This Bear Book is wonderfully fun!

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  2. Oh, well, the Pantone colors we used in printing were only four. But it looks like they were well enough for your joy. Thanks for your enthousiasm.

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  3. Thanks for the correction... I thought that was a lot of colors, but that's what I remembered! Another proof that I have a very unreliable memory when it comes to numbers.

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  4. I like Melissa's idea of traveling to Italy for the book show...now that would be heavenly. I had to post because The Musicians of Brehem was such a favorite story of mine as a child. The idea that the old, thrown away animals found happiness together by tricking those dishonest thieves really spoke to my young soul. I don't hear this story too often in modern classrooms, perhaps someone will rediscover it through your amazingly wonderful fantastic blog.
    Your posts are a happy place for me.

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