Serbian / Serbia
Dar-mar
(Topsy-turvy)
Mladenović, Dragana
(text)
Kuzmanović, Boris
(illus.)
Beograd: Kreativni Centar, 2019. – 99 p.
(Series: Različak)
ISBN 978-86-529-0353-5
Poetry | Wordplay | Pun | Riddle | Reading | Picture book
Reading age: 9+
White Ravens issue: 2020
This wildly colourful, multi-award-winning book is about flip-flopping and criss-crossing: Dragana Mladenović (b. 1977) and Boris Kuzmanović (b. 1980) creatively run riot, intentionally sowing confusion and funny aha-moments in both text and illustration along the way. Ungainly figures with outsized eyes romp about with disproportioned creatures in vibrantly coloured sceneries framed by jewelled borders. They epitomize the short poems and texts, which – according to the book’s preface – interlopers have strewn with little mistakes and unrhymed phrases that readers are supposed to find and laugh about. Instead of going to the supermarket, it’s off to the superparquet. The grocery list has a litre of bread and a kilo of milk on it, while the weekend finds a book grazing rurally instead of a cow. Displacements of sound and meaning, word reversals and twists, and playful fun with reading habits make “Dar-Mar” a marvellous book to read slowly and makes looking twice very worthwhile. [KW]