2023-11-26 07:01:00
Słowianka is an independent publishing house dealing with children’s books in the Belarusian language. “About the hare, the wolf and the bear” is already the third work of the publishing house. Before that, “Katok-pestunok” and “Scammers” were released.
“The idea arose because the books in Belarusian for children are very nice, but there are few of them. And so they decided: why not? After all, you can make a contribution to the fact that more books for children will appear,” says the representative of the publishing house (we do not mention the name at the request of the interlocutor for security reasons. – RS).
The interlocutor says that the poem Todar Klyesthorny proposed cultural researcher, director, teacher Vasyl Dranko-Maisyuk.
“We wanted to include this poem in the collection “Katok-pestunok”, because Vasyl Dranko-Maisyuk was the author of the first book, which contains a classic of Belarusian children’s literature. But this eight-page poem is too long for a collection, so we decided that we can publish it as a separate book.”
Todar Klyesthorny’s poem “About the Hare, the Wolf and the Bear” was published in separate books in 1935 and 1964.
“We had pictures of these booklets, so we could see how it was done before. But it was very difficult to find just the text of this children’s poem on the Internet. Therefore, it seems to me that it is important to rebuild such a heritage of ours, so that such books are also published.”
“We combined a traditional book with a Vimelbuch”
What is unusual about the book is its appearance.
“It will be a harmonica book. Such a folding book, where you can spread the whole story on the floor or table and read, turning one page after another. And we can unfold it completely, like the whole story, then we have a wonderful Belarusian winter forest and animals in front of us.”
The book “About the Hare, the Wolf and the Bear”
The whole book is made on thick cardboard. On one side, there is the main plot with a poem by Todar Klyashtorny, and on the other, a vimelbuch (a type of large-format book with pictures without words, an illustrated puzzle book. — RS).
The book “About the Hare, the Wolf and the Bear”
“So we combined a traditional book, where there is a plot, with a Vimelbuch. Therefore, the book can be viewed and read. Also, we can use the book as a therapeutic game: if the child does not yet know how to read, but he has heard this story several times, then if we unfold the book, we can tell the story, going from one page to another, and if we see everything together.”
“The artist managed to perfectly convey all the emotions of the animals”
In addition to the book, they made a coloring book.
“It will be like a book, two-sided, where you can also tell a story. But there is no text in the coloring page, instead, additional animal characters that can be found in the winter forest have been added. That’s why the coloring page can be called educational, because we signed all the names of the animals in Belarusian on it, so that parents and children could learn about them.”
He became the artistic editor of the book Anatoly Lazarit was he who came up with the idea of making a harmonica book, says a representative of the publishing house.
“The artist of the book – Ekaterina Stiazhko. The story “About the Hare, the Wolf and the Bear” has a very fast plot, and she managed to perfectly convey all the emotions of the animals. This is the core team working on the book.”
The representative of the publishing house notes that it was technologically difficult to implement the book.
“It is very difficult to print on such long cardboard and fold it. But we did not want to give up the idea and did everything. We have already seen a test print, which we are very pleased with, because it is the perfect format, size, the book unfolds well and looks nice.”
The representative of the publishing house says that she is very inspired by work with children and for children.
“It is inspiring when you see how children like the book you create. Inspiring feedback from parents and children. I am very pleased that other Belarusian independent publishing houses are showing support rather than competition. We want to cooperate with other publishing houses, to combine our forces so that books in the Belarusian language are produced faster and there are more of them.”
The book “About the Hare, the Wolf and the Bear” should be published soon. Details can be found in the publishing house’s social networks.
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