The Christmas Operation
Karina Yan Glaser: The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2017) The 141st Street brownstone holds a special place in the hearts of the Vanderbeeker family: it is their home. However, four days before Christmas, they receive bad news: their landlord will not renew their lease for the following year, so they have to leave their home at the end of the month. The children, Isa, Jessie, Oliver, Hyacinth and Laney, therefore decide to convince Mr. Beiderman that the house is not the same without them, no matter what the cost. They must hurry, because they have four days to make “Operation Beiderman” a success or they will have to move. Throughout the story, we can see the everyday life of a family, the preparations for Christmas and the dynamics between family members, neighbors and friends. One of the main points is that raising children requires not only the…
A Moveable Feast
Ernest Hemingway: A Moveable Feast (first published in 1964) Many thanks to 21. Század Kiadó for sending me the book! Ernest Hemingway was born July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, the city of “wide lawns and narrow minds”. During his adventurous life, he participated as a war correspondent in both World Wars, the Spanish Civil War, and lived in Paris, Spain, Florida, and Cuba. He hunted German submarines in the Caribbean, and for everything in Africa. In 1950, he began writing The Old Man and the Sea, which was finally published in 1952. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in 1954. A beautiful, new edition of his life series is being published by 21. Század Kiadó. The author lived in Paris between 1921 and 1926, along with other famous, self-destructive members of the „lost generation”. At that time, he began…
The ugly and the beautiful
Clémentine Beauvais: Piglettes (Pushkin Children’s Books 2017) Mireille, Astrid and Hakima have a lot in common: all three are teenagers, lonely, misfits and barely fit into their own clothes, and they have been voted the ugliest girls at Marie Darrieussecq High School in Bourg-en-Bresse. For three years now, a jerk has been organizing voting for Pig Paegant competition on social media among the girls deemed the ugliest. Mireille is already quite “used” to the humiliation, but this is the first time the other two girls have been on the list. That is why they think that instead of crying about it, they should support each other and go on a roadtrip by bike together, with the goal of making it to Paris on the 14th of July, the national holiday, to the president’s garden party. The book deals with very important and serious topics presented with humor. It talks about…
The Nutcracker
E.T.A. Hoffmann: The Nutcracker (Hutchinson 2017) Although Hoffmann was a lawyer and worked as a judge and councilor, he considered himself primarily a musician. He was also an excellent painter and graphic, but he was also acknowledged as a poet and writer. His exceptional imagination cast even the most ordinary situations in an absurd light. His best-known work is The Golden Flower Pot, but he also wrote a Christmas story: The Nutcracker, which is usually known from adaptations. Hoffmann’s tale has been adapted several times. The version from Dumas was rethought by the Russian composer Tchaikovsky in his last ballet. The plot of the tale has also been adapted, so today we are more likely to identify it with the story told in the ballet performance, accompanied by its beautiful and characteristic music. The original story balances on the border between dreaming and awakness, and like other works by the…
The life of a fir tree
Hans Christian Andersen: The Fir Tree (Hutchinson 2015) Danish author Andersen wrote plays, novels and poems throughout his life, but he is still best known for his fairy tales. He was attracted to the theater since childhood, and he knew Shakespeare’s all plays by heart. He traveled a lot, and even met Charles Dickens in England. He based his tales on Danish, German and Greek legends, historical facts and folk tales, and colored them all with a special melancholy mood. A total of 156 of his tales were published in 9 volumes and translated into 125 languages. In the story of The Fir Tree, the little forest pine can’t wait to grow up and become a mast or a Christmas tree. Finally, the latter happens, and he experiences the beauty of Christmas Eve, the warmth of the decorations and the tales that are told. However, one day, Christmas is over…
Illustrators – Sanna Annukka
Sanna Annukka British/Finnish artist studied at the University of Brighton, which is where her passion for graphic design comes from, and is reflected in her later works. She spent many summers as a child north of the Arctic Circle, and these experiences established a lifelong love and respect for the rawness of the natural world. After graduating, she became a successful freelance illustrator, working with clients including Vogue, Island Records, Selfridges and Nordstrom. She illustrated three classic books: The Fir Tree and The Snow Queen by Andersen, and The Nutcracker by Hoffmann. In 2008, she joined the roster of designers for Finnish textile and fashion brand Marimekko, designing interiors and home decor patterns. That same year, the Finnish Design Museum commissioned her to create large textile wall hangings for their exhibition “FennoFolk – A Collection of New Nordic Oddities”. Her illustrations depict elemental images – the Sun, the Moon, rocks…