The White Ravens Database

Presented by   Internationale Jugendbibliothek / International Youth Library

Romanian / Romania

Dejunul unei frunze

(A leaf’s lunch)

Debattista, Marina (text/illus.)
Bucureşti: Editura Frontiera, 2020. – [34] p.
ISBN 978-606-8986-23-4

Science  | Poetry  | Wordplay  | Nonsense literature  | Picture book

Reading age: 8+

White Ravens issue: 2021

OPAC

This picture book by Marina Debattista demonstrates how charming, refreshing and entertaining it can be to observe scientific phenomena when they are incorporated into children’s poetry. In this case the author-illustrator with a doctorate in physics finds illuminating imagery, whether to describe photosynthesis or the solar system. Leaves of plants become creatures with a multitude of mouths that delight in devouring light-beam steaks. The Moon, Mars, and Jupiter each receive their necessary repairs and become refurbished. Another poem recalls the vanished natural richness of a garden that had to make way for a street. The volume also includes many poems that go beyond the sciences. They contain astonishing wordplay, in which birds, couples, blackberries, or cherries come together in strange ways. Reflecting the complexity of the poems, the spacious, playful illustrations by the author combine collage, linocut, and other printing techniques. [KW]