#518 of 1001 · December 31, 2021

New Year’s Eve—a time of rest, reflection, finality. On this night, we may wish to take stock of all that has gone on in the year before and consider the course of our lives. While pondering such weighty matters, I am digesting a book filled with a powerful sorrow and loneliness: The Fairy Tale of the World by Jürg Amann and Käthi Bhend. A child, abandoned and alone, must leave the earth to seek solace in the heavens. But the moon turns out to be a piece of rotting wood, the sun a wilted flower, the stars a scattering of dead flies. Even the earth now seems to be an old, upturned kettle, and the child is left to weep, friendless and unloved, forever. The startlingly unhappy original text comes from a tale told by an old grandmother in the play Woyzeck, written by German playwright Georg Büchner. Amann has expanded upon the story, adding descriptive imagery to Büchner’s hauntingly bleak narrative. In Bhend’s rapturously beautiful illustrations, however, there appears a note of warmth and hope, for she has taken the radical approach of resisting the grim despair of the text. The final page contains an illustration of the child’s family peering back in through open doors, perhaps never truly having left in the first place. On this last day of the old year, I wish you serenity, strength, and resilience of spirit. #fairytale #world #child #love #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookillustrations #picturebookart #classicchildrensbooks #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks