More on Warja Honegger Lavater

The super helpful and knowledgeable girl who works at MacLeods Books had told me that the artist had made a whole series of well known Children's stories in the same style. She said that the version of 'Little Red Riding Hood' was the most popular amongst them.

Since I wasn't familiar with Warja Honegger Lavater, I did a bit of pocking around online when I came home and found a very good article here on 'And The Ghosts So Silver'. It features more images of the inside of the 'Little Red Riding Hood' book.

Warja Honegger Lavater

So the other day I happened to swing by MacLeod's Books that I had just mentioned in my last post, and amongst finding a great little 'Small Beer' by Ludwig Bemelmans and another fantastic little book, I also found the mother of all versions of 'The Ugly Duckling' by Waria Honegger Lavater. When I saw it in the case I was immediately drawn to it because it promised to be an interesting take on the story right away due to it's abstract cover. I asked to take a look and ... Amazing! The artist has developed a visual, symbolic code for the various characters and scenery in the book. There is a guide at in the front of the book that one can use to help reinterpret the story. Fantastic idea. And to make it even better, the accordion style book can be hung from the wall , thus functioning as both book and wall art simultaneously. Some people are just so clever. ... Of course this copy was about 100$, so alas I did not pick it up, however, should you have the cash on hand to do so, you know where to get it. Might really be worth it.

Here is a picture of the cover I took. So unique.

Always buying books...

I always like to do a shout out to any left over independent bookstores we have. The other day we went on a day trip to New Westminster and I finally got a chance to go to Renaissance Books. It's surprisingly big and there's tons of books in there. Mind you, not occupying every square inch like at McLeod's, one of my favs. Some good finds in the kids book and Art section at Renaissance including these here. Plus an empty vending machine which we were trying to convince the owner to turn into a book vending machine. That would be cool yeah?

The Elegant Cockroach, a Picture Book for Adults, Hurrah!

I recently made a visit to Collage Collage, one of my favorite places here in Vancouver and while looking for a Bruno Munari book, discovered that they did not only have the new book 'The Elegant Cockroach' published by Uppercase Magazine in stock, but they also currently have a show of the original illustrations from the book up!

For anyone living in Vancouver who is interested in illustration, I highly recommend you check out this show because it is truly amazing and inspiring. It's great to see illustrations that are exactly the same as in the book, made without the use of photoshop. While I am a firm believer in the powers of photoshop it's refreshing to see work that fits the content of the book so perfectly in all aspects, in this case all assembled via our good old hands. Also, I was also totally won over by the use of photocopied frames for the works. So lovely!

The show is up until June 2nd at Collage Collage, so do go check it out and buy the book too, cause it's a little gem!

About the Book itself:

I am super excited about pretty much any well crafted picture book for adults, and there are not that many...YET.

And so it will come as no surprise to you that since this book is in my opinion beautifully written, masterfully illustrated and of interest for many adults who might perhaps usually not gravitate towards a picture book format I couldn't be happier about it and hope that it will open the floodgates for many other publishers to take more chances and take on similar projects. Adults need picture books too, yes they doooo!

Go see the show.

Go buy the book.