Fino kolo
(The Cool Bike) Book not yet available in English
Summary:
First-grader Mile, who lives with his mother in Mostar, longs for a Freetime bicycle he sees in a shop window. He might even have gotten it if war had not broken out in 1991, forcing him, in 1993, to move to Ljubljana to live with a distant relative. Though the local children quickly accept him, he struggles with homesickness and spends most of his time with a girl named Lana, who one day ends up with the very bike he had dreamed of …
Edited by: Mestna knjižnica Ljubljana
Comment:
Told in comic form, the story sensitively portrays the struggles of a child refugee. It is as if the bicycle he dreamed of back home could somehow help him overcome his longing for home and his mother’s absence. On a symbolic level, the bike takes on the role of a magical object, as in a fairy tale. Yet life in a world where wars rage so close to children is far from a fairy tale, and people, even in the free world, are not always kind. Worse, they can be reckless and cruel — the hateful words “Balkan gypsy” cut the boy deeply. A debut comic for the illustrator Tanja Komadina, this heartbreaking story for young readers is based on a tale by Manka Kremenšek Križman from the short story collection Dvoriščna okna (Courtyard Windows), a work typically classified by librarians as adult literature. The comic will strike a chord with both young and adult readers. The book has received the Golden Pear Quality Badge and has been selected for White Ravens, an annual selection of children’s and youth literature from around the world by the International Youth Library in Munich.