Prva ljubezen
(First Love) Book not yet available in English
Summary:
Brane Mozetič and Maja Kastelic have teamed up again for a picture book that subtly and delicately explores the emotional bond between two six-year-old boys in kindergarten. A new boy, having just moved from the countryside to the city, struggles to make friends. He is taken under the wing by another boy, Drejček, and before long, the two become best friends. However, the kindergarten teachers start making it clear that their friendship and emotional bond are “wrong”, and keep them apart (almost forcibly), finding reasons to prevent them from being alone together.
Edited by: Mestna knjižnica Ljubljana
Comment:
Featuring a handwritten-style font, this picture book offers a sensitive and unobtrusive portrayal of the troubling ways in which adults intrude upon the experiential and emotional world of children, emphasizing that such bonds are, at their core, fragile and open, and therefore lie beyond the discourse of what is considered socially acceptable, labelled unacceptable, or deemed to be severed. The book 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.