The Ukrainian children’s book trademark 2011

One of the world’s largest children’s book fairs took place in the ancient Italian town of Bologna. Among the award-winners was the Ukrainian book by Vasyl Holoborodko The Mitten Full of Poems, printed by the publishing house Hrani-T.

Bologna is a beautiful town in northern Italy, with a historical center filled with churches, ancient buildings and towers. However, Bologna is especially famous for its arcades, which protect many of the central streets from sun and rain. The famed local university was the first in Europe (by the way, the Ukrainian Yurii Drohobych was one of his chancellors). During the Bologna Book Fair the university was on strike and its buildings were covered with leftist political slogans. Actually, the Italians like striking and do it well — nearly at the same time the Italian railways stopped working.

For those used to Ukrainian fairs such as the Lviv Forum, the fair in Bologna is amazingly large: dozens of halls, the largest of which is almost as big as all the halls at our Forum; dozens of countries and countless publishers (during the book fair it’s quite problematic to find a spare room in the local hotels). There’s a whole world of children’s books, endless and exhausting to study, and the four days (March 28-31) of the fair aren’t nearly enough. The numerous visitors roam about searching for something specific or just looking at all the stands, one after the other. When tired they eat the famous and expensive Italian icecream, or sit down on the floor to have some rest. Some young moms even manage to feed here their babies.

The characteristic feature of the book fair in Bologna is that it’s mostly attended by the publishers, authors, illustrators, literature agents, etc., whereas the Ukrainian book fairs are often visited by the people willing to buy the books they can’t find elsewhere. At the Bologna Fair the people mainly buy copyrights, layouts, illustrations and sign contracts on cooperation. The books themselves are accessible in Italy’s numerous and well stocked bookshops.

Unfortunately, though quite expectedly, Ukraine wasn’t represented in Bologna on a state level. Our country was only represented by one joint stand of two publishing houses, Pelikan and Merry Food, and which included books published by Hrani-T. The stand’s organizers say that they’ve been taking part in the fair for seven years. The government doesn’t provide them with any support. “It’s good that at least it doesn’t hinder us,” laughs Vadym Sovietov. Meanwhile, children’s books publishing is considered the most developed branch of the Ukrainian book market.

Our post-socialist neighbors — Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Croatia, the Czech Republic and others — are not hindered but helped by their governments. As a result, they have not only stands for separate publishers, but large and stylish national stands, presenting the traditions and modern trends in children’s and teenagers’ book printing. This year Lithuania was a guest of honor at the Bologna Fair. Its stand had an interesting, slightly cubistic design with a lot of high-quality Lithuanian books, including ones created by the known in Ukraine children’s books experts Kestitis Kasparavicius and Sigute Ach. The Czech stand presented a small installation — a whole, tiny town made of…bread: bread buildings, inhabitants and animals.

However, the Ukrainian children’s books gave one occasion to rejoice. The book The Mitten Full of Poems, by the famous Ukrainian poet Vasyl Holoborodko, was included in the annual ranking of 250 children’s and teenagers’ books, The White Ravens, initiated by the Munich International Youth Library. This book is both deep and naive at the same time, just like a book by a first-rate Kyiv Poets School member. The poems for children aren’t written using simple rhymed verse, but in the form of vers libre (called in the book’s summary “the vers libre for kids”). The artist Inga Levi illustrated the book with its “hatched” drawings, full of cocky dynamism, at times naive, realistically grotesque or fantastic.

The White Ravens presentation started quite early but was attended by a lot of people. Petra Wirsching, the library director’s assistant said:

“The books we choose for The White Ravens have to combine both high-quality text and design, and have to be published in the original language during the previous year. The publishers from different countries send them to us and our experts make their choice. We aren’t guided by big names, which is why our ranking may reveal new interesting authors and illustrators — something unexpected. Of course, sometimes our ranking includes the stars, for example, last year we awarded the world-known illustrator Shaun Tan.”

The Mitten Full of Poems was presented among the foreign books. It follows the Slovakian book Ervin the Worm by Andrea Gregusova and Juraj Martiska. Most of the books were from German-, English- and Spanish-speaking countries, and from the Far East. Slav countries continue to lag behind, though they are also represented. Ukraine and Montenegro presented one book each. Russia and Poland had four to five. There weren’t any Belarusian, Serbian, Bosnian or Lusatian children’s books. This was not due to the Munich jury’s bias, but rather the result of a lack of activity and initiative on behalf of the publishers from this or that country.

Separate pages from the 53 awarded books will appear in the Arche Children’s Calendar, which will comprise an illustrated poem from Vasyl Holoborodko and Inga Levi’s book translated into German.

It’s interesting that the design of many books from The White Ravens ranking does not have an open, naive, and positive approach, but rather an ironic, teenage and pop one.

“I admit that this year we have a ‘teenage’ focus, but I’m not sure if we can come up with any conclusions concerning the general trends,” commented Petra Wirsching.

However, the stands from different countries and publishers prove that this tendency exists. There’s an impression that the publishers want to “pull in” the little readers to teenage standards which are certainly more “exploitative.” Fortunately, children, their parents and publishers, can accept or not accept this trend: choose a book that is just a “paper illustration” to the next American cartoon or choose an American book with an interesting design, like The Shadow by Suzy Lee, telling about the adventures of a girl in the world of shadows.

Let’s hope that the best Ukrainian books will be internationally represented in the future.