Underwater London
Katya Balen: The Thames and Tide Club – The Secret City (Bloomsbury Publishing 2023) The Thames and Tide Club is already known from October, October by Katya Balen. In this book, we get to know another group of people who search for treasures washed up on the banks of the Thames. Clem and her friends Ash and Zara, along with other residents of their estate, go out to the riverbank every Saturday – rain or shine – and look for treasures. They usually find – if not treasures, then objects that the local museum curator deems worth preserving. One day, however, Clem returns from her mudlarking with a very strange find. This sets off a chain of unexpected and astonishing events. At the beginning of the story, we cannot yet guess that the adventures of Clem and her friends will take a fantastic turn when they step into an unknown,…
The Man behind the Work
J.J. Abrams – Doug Dorst: S. – Ship of Theseus (Canongate Books 2013) Many thanks to Geopen Könyvkiadó for sending me the book! A story within a story. The Ship of Theseus is the last novel by the once famous writer V.M. Straka. Its hero S. is a man without a past who takes part in both a symbolic and real journey. The other story is that of two readers, Jen and Eric, who send messages to each other through writings on the margins and try to find out the writer’s identity and at the same time solve the problems of their own lives. The person who came up with all this is the film director, producer, screenwriter J.J. Abrams and university professor Doug Dorst. Together they created this work, the uniqueness of which lies not in its story, but in the fact that it is itself a work of…
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…
Magic still happens here
Natalie Lloyd: A Snicker of Magic (Scholastic 2014) Midnight Gulch was once full of magic. It was a secret place, because the mountains and the river hid it from the world and protected it. Its inhabitants had magic flowing in their veins, some could lock starlight in a jar, or make it rain, or become invisible. But the most special power belonged to those siblings, who, when they started playing music, everyone started dancing and became cheerful. However, once they challenged each other to a duel and since then, unfortunately, the magic has disappeared from the town. Or is there still a little left? Felicity, with her forever wandering mother and sister, returns to their family’s old home. Felicity also has a little bit of magic: she sees words everywhere. Sometimes they have wings, or tiny feet, high-heeled shoes or zebra stripes. But there is a word that she had…
The unique Charlie McGuffin
Sam Copeland: Charlie Changes Into a Chicken (Penguin Books 2019) Sam Copeland: Charlie Turns Into a T-Rex (Penguin Books 2019) Charlie is an unusual little boy. He can transform into an animal. He just doesn’t know why and what kind of animal he will become. It all started three weeks after his ninth birthday, when he got home from the hospital where he visited his brother. In other ways, however, Charlie is completely normal. He is like you or me. He is an optimist, but he thinks a lot about certain things. About things that he is afraid of, but he doesn’t dare or cannot tell them. It’s lucky that he has friends who are always there for him. No wonder you recognized Charlie when you read about him. His story is about anxiety and overcoming it. It is about how important is the role of positive thoughts, but also…