Czech / Czech Republic
Překlep a Škraloup
(Typo and Skin)
Končinský, Tomáš
(text)
Klárová, Barbora
(text)
Špaček, Daniel
(illus.)
Štěpán, Petr
(illus.)
V Praze: Albatros, 2016. – 116 p.
ISBN 978-80-00-04502-3
Old age | Transience | Time
Reading age: 7+
White Ravens issue: 2017
“Překlep a Škraloup” made a big splash in the Czech Republic this year. It won two of the most important literary awards (Magnesia Litera, Zlata Stuha) and is much loved by critics as well as by the public. Obviously, the author-illustrator quartet of Tomáš Končinský, Barbora Klárová, Daniel Špaček, and Petr Štěpán has hit upon the right way to tell a story about aging and transience – it requires humour and irony. Time’s progress is inexorable: Things seem brand new, but suddenly they’ve yellowed, transformed themselves and sometimes taken on a peculiar smell. Little creatures who use special tools are behind these changes. One day, one of these creatures – “Typo”, who introduces typing errors into texts – begins to search for the “source of time”, asking why everything must age and fade away, since this makes people and things suffer.