Yulia Horst
This is a fantastically original picture book built on one simple yet alluring premise: What would life be like if people had tails? A shrewd and lexical text combined with classic and beautiful illustrations, Halens historie entices the reader to visit a hypothetical world – a world populated by people with tails! We see how tails can be used to convey emotions, how they can come in handy when we want to flirt a little, or even to poke fun at others. We gain an insight into how tails influence fashion trends and why some individuals have a strained relationship with their tail and take drastic steps in order to fit in with beauty ideals. But there’s also a look at more day-to-day matters, such as how to exersice your tail and how to avoid your tail being stepped on. Halens historie is a beautiful and charmingly outlandish picture book written in the style of a factbook, all about the history of the tail. ‘Halens historie is as playful, funny and fantastic as a picture book for children ought to be... The playful nature hasn’t been cut short at the idea stage, but permeates the entire story and facilitates numerous questions and added fun underway... Text is scarce and factual whilst remaining a lovely book for reading aloud. Even so, the illustrations take centre stage. Rather than simply expanding upon the text, they constitute the majority of the book’s content. Each has been painstakingly completed, rich in content and varied in a mix of colour and black-and-white images that serve to emphasise and strengthen the book’s appeal... Pencil strokes, yellowed pages and cursive handwriting form associations to an old-fashioned sketchbook. In this way, the book emerges as a kind of draft version of a fact book from another world. It provides opportunities for explanation and conversation along the way.’ DAGBLADET Solid tail story 'Halens historie is surprisingly convincing in its assumptions about how we would regard our tails. … Halens historie has many of the features that characterise picture books set to remain relevant for a long time, and wonderful humour for both children and adults is one of them. The first thing that strikes the reader is Daria Rychkova’s illustrations … precise and beautiful spreads; part pencil drawing, part elegant and precise watercolours. … drawings of tails seldom say so much. Her mastery of historical dress and costumes is also striking. … Halens historie can be read from the start, end and middle, and will always delight and surprise readers.' NUMER
