Croatian / Croatia
Zimska potraga
(Searching for winter)
Kirin, Miroslav
(text)
Pi, Mingsheng
(illus.)
Zagreb: Mala Zvona, 2015. – [31] p.
ISBN 978-953-7760-54-0
Animals | Nature | Snow | Seasons | Picture book
Reading age: 3+
White Ravens issue: 2016
“The forest animals enjoyed a lovely summer day. Then another. Then some lovely autumn days arrived, and all was well with the ants, squirrels, birds, deer and wolves. But the animals were waiting for something still missing. They waited for the snow, and it did not come. And so they send the birds into the skies to look. When the birds return, each one carries a snowflake in its beak. Then it finally snows.” The succinct, rhythmic language of well-known Croatian poet Miroslav Kirin (b. 1965) lends this simple story great poetic force and conveys the feeling that one is catching a glimpse of a well-guarded secret about the world. The minimalist water colour paintings of illustrator Mingsheng Pi (b.1969), born in China and living in Croatia, in which text and picture somewhat melt into one another, support this sense of enlightenment and make “Zimska potraga” an unusual picture book.