Russia
(Romanisation according to RAK-WB)
204
Aromštam, Marina (text)
Donec, Il'ja / Ščetinskaja, Margarita (illus.)
Kogda otdychajut angely (When the angels rest)
Moskva: KompasGid 2010. – 199 p.
(Series: Deti vs vzroslye)
ISBN 978-5-904561-05-5
School – Pupil – Teacher
Alina, whose parents are separated, joins the class of teacher Marsem.
Readers accompany the girl through the first four years of her day-to-day
school life that, thanks to Marsem and her group games, storytelling, and
unusual set of rules, is quite different from the typical ex-cathedra
teaching. In an attractive double perspective, a seemingly idyllic everyday
life is described by first-person narrator Alina; Marsem’s diaries however
provide a different view. Repeatedly, the teacher struggles with her
educational ideals and her relationship with the children. When they begin
to push Marsem’s limits, she is forced to act. This award-winning novel,
released by the young publishing house KompasGid, offers children a direct
and unvarnished view of themselves as pupils and of the unknown inner life
of a teacher. (Age: 11+)
205
Djadina, Galina (text)
Bichter, Aleksandr (illus.)
Knižka v tel'njaške. Morskaja azbuka (Little book in a sailor’s shirt.
A marine alphabet)
Sankt-Peterburg: Grif [et al.], 2010. – 61 p.
ISBN 978-5-85388-040-5
Sea – Water – Poetry
In 2010, the children’s book publisher Detgiz organised its second festival
for young children’s book authors. In cooperation with the publishing house
Grif, they have now published the first book written exclusively by Galina
Djadina, who belongs to this new generation of authors. Her poetic
kaleidoscope about life in and at the sea is brimming with ideas. From
albatross to life belt, from Neptune to tsunami, from sea cucumber to tiger
shark – this volume gathers everything connected with the marine world.
Djadina turned the content into wonderful verses and arranged them cleverly.
For example, she separates the word “iceberg” into two parts and puts the
shorter “ice” on top of the longer “berg”. Thus she linguistically imitates
a phenomenon observed in nature: Often the ice above the water is only the
tip of the iceberg. (Age: 5+)
206
Ponomareva, Svetlana / Ponomarev, Nikolaj (text)
Sapunova, Nadežda (illus.)
Boiš’sja li ty temnoty? (Are you afraid of the dark?)
Moskva: Centr Narnija, 2010. – 275 p.
(Series: Mir dlja vsech: mir gde my živëm)
ISBN 978-5-901975-63-3
Orphanage – Foster family – Adolescence – War trauma – Chechnya
The Ponomarevs do not only know the diffuse emotional state of teenagers
very well, they’ve also listened attentively to adolescents and thus manage
to aptly imitate their linguistic style. Talented fourteen-year-old Jaroslav
is sent to an orphanage after his parents die in an accident. He meets
Sergej there, a staff member who only recently returned from Chechnya as war
veteran. Jaroslav is considered a problematic child who suffers from a
multitude of anxieties and a lack of self-confidence; apart from that, he is
also confronted with the typical problems of adolescents. Sergej, on the
other hand, tries to cope with his traumatic experiences from the war. After
a few errors and misunderstandings, it becomes obvious that these two need
each other to come to terms with their lives. (Age: 14+)
207
Usačev, Andrej (text)
Olejnikov, Igor' (illus.)
Kolybel'naja kniga (The lullaby book)
Moskva: Ripol-Klassik, 2009. – [36] p.
ISBN 978-5-386-01704-0
Night – Sleep – Lullaby – Good night story – Poetry
When you read Russian children’s poetry, you are bound to encounter Andrej
Usačev – not only because he likes putting his poems to music and performing
them, but also because his poetry is truly harmonious and varied in terms of
metre, rhythm, and topic. In his “Lullaby Book”, the poetic universe touches
upon everything connected with sleeping and the night: pillows, dream worlds,
hibernation, not-wanting-to-go-to-sleep, darkness, quietness, the moon, and
fireflies. What Usačev manages to achieve in his onomatopoeic rustling poems,
his counting-out-rhymes, and his wordplays, Igor’ Olejnikov accomplishes
just as well in his illustrations: He depicts the ocean’s stillness in
serene blue within a static maritime landscape, places the wakeful little
dragon with its bright red head into a swinging scene, and employs colours
and composition flexibly to trace the literary motifs. (Age: 3+)
208
Vostokov, Stanislav (text/illus.)
Ne kormit' i ne draznit'. Rasskazy o Moskovskom zooparke (No feeding, no
teasing. Tales from the Moscow Zoo)
Moskva: Samokat, 2011. – 71 p.
ISBN 978-5-91759-026-4
Zoo – Animals
If you were to enter the Moscow Zoo equipped with this exercise-book-like
notebook belonging to a shrewd, shirt-sleeved, likeable zookeeper, you would
see the park in a completely different light. Stanislav Vostokov captures
remarkable facts about animals, staff members, visitors, and the zoo
facilities in a pacy and, thanks to its unfamiliar viewpoint, highly
entertaining way, full of puns and punch lines. Linguistic piquancy and a
smattering of knowledge turn the keeper’s observations into great anecdotes:
“It’s easy to appear to be threatening if you have claws, horns, or tusks.
Yet I want to see you try that, if you are a peacock and have nothing but a
green feathery tuft on your head… Then you need to let your personality do
the work… with conceit…” (Age: 7+)