Greek / Cyprus
Ē kitrinē kuberta tēs eutychias
(The yellow blanket of happiness)
Michaēlidu-Kadē, Marina
(Michaelidou-Kadi, Marina)
(text)
Kutsogiannēs, Basilēs
(Koutsogiannis, Vassilis)
(illus.)
Leukōsia (Nicosia): Teleia, 2018. – [29] p.
ISBN 978-9925-551-09-5
Family | Divorce | Father | Daughter | Picture book
Reading age: 5+
White Ravens issue: 2019
On many a cold night, when the father, who works as a pilot, is not at home, a girl and her mother share a sun-yellow blanket and a film. It’s always the same blanket, the same film. Yet one day, the parents separate. The yellow blanket no longer provides warmth, and the daughter feels increasingly estranged from her father. It is not until he picks her up for an outing one day and rescues the neighbour’s dog, that both she and her mother start feeling sympathy for him again. With sensitivity and without any didactic or moral intent, award-winning author Marina Michaelidou-Kadi’s story indicates how important it is to maintain a feeling of togetherness, as well as to keep up the rituals so familiar and meaningful for a child. Promising artist Vassilis Koutsogiannis creates an almost photo-realistic likeness of the protagonists’ faces in the central images. Their contrasting and reluctant feelings, on the other hand, become symbolically visible in an imaginative and empathetic way through the complementary colours yellow and violet.