German / Switzerland
Lange Schlange stehen
(Standing in a really long queue)
Schärer, Kathrin
(text/illus.)
Zürich: Atlantis, 2026. – [30] p.
ISBN 978-3-7152-0933-3
Picture book | Animals | Waiting | Patience | Queue
Reading age: 3+
White Ravens issue: 2026
Few illustrators are as adept as Swiss artist Kathrin Schärer at drawing animals that are both so naturalistic and so anthropomorphised. In »Lange Schlange stehen«, she has plenty of scope to showcase her talent, as lots of creatures line up, one behind the other, in a long queue, including Fox, Bear, Hare, Hedgehog, Penguin, Walrus, and Rhino. As she has done in previous books, Kathrin Schärer also uses the front and back endpapers for her story – almost a trademark element of hers! Thus the queue stretches seamlessly from the cover, across the front endpaper, right into the main part: There, the animals wait patiently in front of the ice-cream stall, by the slide and diving platform at the outdoor pool, or outside the toilet. In the chocolate shop, however, something happens: A real – and, what’s more, hungry – snake slithers into the shop: Help! Suddenly a big hullabaloo ensues… This picture book does not only test the protagonists’ patience, it also offers a good deal of action (and a happy ending, of course). [IG]