German / Austria
Kommt das Nashorn
(The rhinoceros is coming)
Janisch, Heinz
(text)
Bansch, Helga
(illus.)
Wien: Jungbrunnen, 2016. – [26] p.
ISBN 978-3-7026-5895-3
Self-esteem | Contrast | Picture book
Reading age: 2+
White Ravens issue: 2016
The rhino is a grey mountain. Big and heavy... and sad. He would so like to be light and delicate like the little white bird who floats through the air like a snowflake. The bird consoles the rhino, saying that things are perfect as they are – the big rhino offers a perfect place for the bird to land and rest. The two animals complement each other in their contrastive nature, as do the text and illustrations in Heinz Janisch’s und Helga Bansch’s new picture book. Suggestive repetitions punctuate the whole text, while the individual lines on each page look and read like poems. The elliptical texts open up a wide associative realm by drawing on synaesthetic connections, for instance: “The rhinoceros is coming. Earth is shaking. The stillness now smells different.” Bansch’s rhinocerine studies are just as striking. Capturing the rhino from different perspectives – head-on, from behind, from the side, up close and at a distance – as well as detailing his rough hide make the rhino feel quite real. One can nearly feel it, as one strokes across the paper.