New Arrivals

First things first: this is a photo of our new puppy, just in from the pound...

She is part of a litter of five that was found in a field not far from Florence,

most likely abandoned by her mother's owners after they were weaned.

She doesn't yet have an official name, but has already made herself at home

and helped to dispel the sadness that filled our family after Emma's death. 

Welcome home, little girl!

For a long time now, I have been wanting to create a monthly feature 

dedicated to new and recently published children's books. One of the problems 

with my tendency to create rather long, in-depth posts is the fact that a lot 

of lovely things that catch my eye never make it to Animalarium. 

Hopefully I'll be able to keep this new appointment short and to the point!

Lots of cool design references in this picture

Today's picks are a couple of lovely books that I was able to preview

last Spring at the Bologna Book Fair, and I want to thank both publishers

for kindly sending me some pictures to share on Animalarium. 

The first is La mémoire de l'éléphant by my beloved Jean-François Martin, 

who by the way just won the Grand Prix de l’Illustration 2012 for his Aesop's Fables,

already featured on Animalarium after it won the 2011 Bologna Ragazzi Award. 

Many of the pages display collections of different objects and things

The story, written by Sophie Strady, brings us on a tour through the encyclopedic memory 

of the old elephant Marcel. He is collecting in a book all of the things he has learned

during his long life, now let's see if he can remember the date of his own birthday...

The large-size volume was published by hélium last April, and I hope to see 

an Italian edition out soon.

A strange place to call home features poems by Marilyn Singer illustrated with collages 

by Caldecott winner Ed Young, and was published last month by Chronicle Books. 

This time, we take a tour around the world to meet some animals that have adapted 

to live in the strangest environments and most difficult conditions. An interesting, 

instructive book that is also poetic and beautiful to look at. 

In my opinion, both of these volumes have the qualities to be loved by children and adults alike.

And these are the kind of books that I love the best... See you next month with more!

French Finesse

This gorgeous volume by Jean-François Martin was the winner of this year's 

Bologna Ragazzi Award in the fiction category.

Jean-François Martin is a graphic designer and illustrator living in Paris. Since 1993, 

he has published many children's books with major French companies like Nathan, Flammarion, and Bayard. 

Fables d'Esope has come out for Milan Jeunesse, the same lovely people who last year published 

Sebastiano's Animal Rainbow. In fact, when we visited Milan's booth to talk about future projects, 

I completely forgot to take a good look at the book, so the following photos come courtesy of School Library Journal.

Both illustrations and typography have a wonderful retro feel,

but I'll let the jury do the talk, since they are much more eloquent than me: 

“Countless illustrators have returned down the ages to the ancient magic of the fairytale.

 Here it seems that Felix Valloton in his halcyon years has returned to instill a new pace

 into a time-honoured tale, without, however, diminishing its power. The splendid illustrations resonate 

to mysterious melodies. Allusive line-work, intriguing faces and a subtle blend of ochre and grey tones

 are all bathed in a captivating surreal light that draws everything together. A truly magnificent 

“tale of all tales”, this book is a typographical masterpiece blending to perfection beautiful type faces 

with an unusual yet extraordinarily harmonious amalgam of delicate almost unsubstantiated hues.”

Funny thing is, when I visited Albin Michel's booth I was drawn to the striking cover

of this book of cat tales. The inside illustrations were also very intriguing, so I took 

quite a few photos and only days after I realized that they were by the same artist.

As you can see, these artworks too are rich with historical references.

The scene above in particular strongly reminds me of William Nicholson's woodcuts. 

Well, it was love at first sight...

Now I can't wait to see more of Martin's books, 

including the very promising Nouvel abécédaire Russe!