Agonisingly boring bedtime stories Our everyday life is basically the same as Emmental cheese: a few holes here and there improve the quality considerably. Time to calm down. Time to just be yourself. Great people know how important this is once they have celebrated their birthday about three dozen times; or when they have been…
Picture Books
Have you ever tried to read the Little Prince to little children? You will soon have realized that it doesn‘t work. Just like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s little hero, you must have learned a fair bit about the world before the fabulous story becomes accessible to you. Children‘s book author Isabel Pin has undertaken to recount…
Whenever Line can‘t fall asleep at night, she needs her cuddly toys. But they are scattered all over her bedroom. So Line has to get out of bed and collect them one by one. Every animal she finds tells her a story or an adventure experienced in a distant land. Bob the bear takes her…
Mika’s dad works at home, but he’s very busy with work. The promised visit to the quarry pond seems to be a long way off! To get Mika off his back, he allows Mika to buy a pet… This is the beginning of a wonderfully turbulent story in which one animal after another populates the…
It’s hard to believe, but sometimes even tigers get bored. Neither playing soccer with vultures, singing with the wildebeest, nor acting with the monkeys can help the tiger get rid of his boredom. The tiger comes up with a great idea one day: he’ll learn to fly! But this proves to be more difficult than…
Frida, it has to be said, is rather small. But so are Flii and Mo. Flii is a little gnome and Mo is a whale, but he never really seemed to be able to grow much. The three are best friends and live together in their city. This city isn‘t really big either, but what…
Oscar is Dad’s brother. He wants to move into the house where the whole family already lives. “Is he like you?”, asks Mum. “No, different”, says Dad. “Then he can start by trimming the hedge”, says Mum. “He won’t do that”, says Dad. Then Oscar arrives and only does what he wants. He does not…
Melin had actually been looking forward to school. And it wasn’t noticeable at the beginning, because everyone makes mistakes then. It was only noticed a little later, when the kids were all a bit older. No matter how hard Melin tried: whether a word is written with i or ie, with h or without h,…
Jenny Bornholdt & Sarah Wilkins A Book is a Book Told from a child’s view, this book captures the magic of books felt by voracious readers, and is a perfect gift for book-lovers of all ages. This small-format jacketed hardback has whimsical yet humorous illustrations and words that perfectly define everything that is good about…
Fleech, the leech, is no ordinary bloodsucker. On the contrary, he conscientiously pursues his work at a veterinary practice. He does his gymnastic exercises in the mornings, treats patients in the afternoon and takes care of the river sand at the bottom of his jar in the evenings. He is aware that much depends on…
The Cook who Cooked for Captain Cook Cook’s Cook follows the 1768 journey of James Cook’s H.M.S. Endeavour with his ship’s cook, the one-handed John Thompson, as story teller. Through real recipes, events on board and the places the ship travelled on its way to the Pacific, the book tells multiple stories. Here are stories…
When bus driver Ben Brause wants to start his bus on Monday morning, an unusual passenger comes running at the last moment: It is a dung beetle who rolls a huge dung ball in front of him and actually heaves the stinking thing into the bus. There are complaints about the smell immediately, although this…
Litos walks around all day sleeping in corners here and there. It‘s because of the monster in his closet. The problem is not that he is scared of it, but the monster is bored during the day. At night, when Litos goes to bed, it comes out of the closet with a monstrous desire to…
Animalistic Two-Parters Two images and a cracking two-liner—Nadia Budde doesn’t need more than this to tell a funny story on a single double page spread! Just like this: Image no. 1: A late-adolescent kangaroo begrudgingly leaves the pouch of its annoyed mother. Image no. 2: The nursery is finally vacated, but there are two conspicuous…
In this resonant story from Joy Cowley, Cam the mountain boy follows the river from its trickling source in the snow all the way to the sea. The river leads him through forest, farms and towns to the salty wind of the sea. The dramatic landscapes are packed with detail to discover in the world…
Spiders spin spiders’ webs. That is normal. But one little spider in the meadow is different. Arachnida cannot spin webs. The old cross spider urges her to keep practicing and grows increasingly impatient when Arachnida keeps failing to accomplish this task. In the end, all the other insects and animals in the meadow laugh at…
A child comes home with a fish in water inside a plastic bag, that he just won at the fair. He goes to sleep early to enjoy the calm of his fish. The next day, he is woken by the noise of a cow sailing in the sky. He is surprised to discover that everything…
Tim is not at a loss for excuses. In fact, he is in desperate need of excuses—every day of the week. On Monday, because he’s late for school. On Tuesday, because he forgets his socks. On Wednesday, because he brings home a dog instead of the shopping. That’s the way it works all through the…
A sheet of paper blown about by a sandstorm ends up in the hands of Moussa. He immediately thinks about using it to make a drawing of his village Thille Boubacar for his father, who lives abroad. But the whole village does not fit on one page. Moussa undertakes a tour through different typical scenes…
Night after night the night riders guide the people into the land of dreams. But one starless night, the shadows turn up out of nowhere. They are fast, cunning and determined to destroy all dreams. The land of dreams seems to be lost forever. But the night riders bravely wage the unequal struggle against the…