This year, as you may know, I was unable to attend the Bologna Children's Book Fair.
But thanks to the generosity of friends and publishers, and a trip to the very well stocked
Florentine children's book store Cuccumeo, I do have some wonderful new books
to share with you over the next weeks. First of all, once again I am very grateful
to Topipittori for introducing into our country some of my favorite European illustrators
(besides working with some excellent Italian ones). This new beautiful new volume is a reprint
of Stark wie ein Bär, the 2012 award winning book by the German illustrator Katrin Stangl.
I first took notice of Stangl in 2009 when another invaluable Italian publisher,
Corraini, published The Musicians of Brehem. I saw her work again at the 2011 Illustrators Exhibition
in Bologna, and her striking, bold style and two-color linocut technique again made an impression.
Forte comme un orso is an explosion of colorful vitality. The simple text enunciates
a list of animal qualities that children will easily identify with, and the full page
illustrations will easily delight adults too. The book's vibrant chromatic quality
was achieved thanks to a printing process using four different pantone colors.
