Robinson

Robinson by Peter Sis

"Robinson" is a book about friendship, imagination and the healing power of stories, which was born out of an experience that all children go through in one form or another: confronting what others think. Let's give the word to the author:

"Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe, in an edition with fantastic illustrations, was one of the favorite books of my childhood. I was delighted by the story of the castaway who manages to survive for many years on a remote island because he is intelligent and skilled.

My book "Robinson" is inspired by a true incident from my childhood. I remembered it when I found a photo of me dressed as the brave adventurer for a school pageant. My mother, Alenka, a plastic artist, who had very skilled hands, made me a costume using my sister's ballet equipment, a tank top, a wig and some pieces of faux fur. He also made me a bow and a kind of spear. I won First Prize and my picture appeared on the front page of the local paper. Mom was very proud.

But in my recollection, the suit was not comfortable at all. My sister's gear kept slipping off me, my fur was eating me, my makeup was running off. I couldn't wait to see myself back home. Especially since my friends and all the kids there were laughing at me (clearly they hadn't read "Robinson Crusoe").

I got a fever and had to stay in bed for days. Have we really been to Robinson Crusoe's "Island of Despair"? Whatever happened in those lonely days of my shipwreck made me stronger. In my solitude, I became the master of my own island and managed to believe in myself again. So when my friends came to see me, I was able to forgive them and move on, forgetting everything that happened. They all now wanted to listen to Robinson Crusoe stories and might even have read the book together.

After this incident, my friends and I lived all kinds of adventures, discovering the North Pole and exploring the Himalayan Mountains... But about these maybe in another book.

PETER SÍS

(Translation by Florin Bican)

PETER SÍS was born in 1949 in Czechoslovakia, in the city of Brno (today, in the Czech Republic). He studied at the Academy of Art in Prague and the Royal College of Art in London. He began his career in cinema, a field in which he was rewarded in 1980 at the Berlin Film Festival with the Golden Bear for an animated short. In 1982, he settled in the United States following a request for political asylum and began working as an author and illustrator of children's books. It has been awarded eight times with The New York Times Book Review for the best illustrated book of the year, three times with the Caldecott Honor Medal and, in 2012, with the Hans Cristian Andersen Award.

Age group: 6–9 years
25 × 30 cm/ book with hard cover/ 48 pages.
ISBN: 978-606-8544-94-6/ Year of publication: 2018
Translation by: Florin Bican