Toon Tellegen & Ingrid Godon
Tomorrow’s Party (Morgen was het feest)
Poet and children’s writer Toon Tellegen is best known for his poetic animal stories about the squirrel, the ant, the mole and the elephant. The imaginary biotope of Tellegen’s forest is a perfect reflection of the world in all its absurdity, impossible to map because there are no clear connecting routes. The creatures who live there make naive and pointless attempts to understand their peculiar world, but rarely receive any clear answers to their important questions, many of which have a philosophical slant. Morgen was het feest (Tomorrow’s Party), is once again packed with layers of meaning, inventiveness, wistfulness, questions, puns and plays on words.
However, in terms of structure, Tellegen’s latest book is different than his previous offerings. He divides Morgen was het feest into four seasons and cleverly weaves the twenty-eight animal stories together, making this book an excellent introduction to Tellegen for younger readers.
First comes winter, with a full-page wintery picture by the highly regarded Flemish illustrator Ingrid Godon. Snowflakes come tumbling down from a pink winter sky, covering the gnarled branches of a brown tree that has a half-frozen squirrel staring out from a hole in the trunk.
The starving squirrel makes ‘heavy weather’ of chasing the winter away, until the swallows herald in the spring. When Squirrel asks why they have chosen that precise moment to appear in the sky, their answer is: ‘It all happens naturally. After winter, the spring follows naturally.’ And so, in his original and captivating style, Tellegen neatly introduces the inevitable circular and linear movement of time, describing the seasons in all of their colourful variety and showing how they influence the animals and their behaviour.
Publisher
Querido
Singel 262
NL - 1016 AC Amsterdam
TEL. +31 20 551 12 62
FAX +31 20 639 19 68
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.querido.nl
Publishing details
Morgen was het feest (2008, 101 pp)
Age: 8+
Biographies
Toon Tellegen (b. 1941), a GP by profession, became famous primarily for his poetic, philosophical animal stories about Squirrel, Ant, Mole, Hedgehog and the other animals, who are carefully trying to find their way in an incomprehensible world. However, his extensive oeuvre also includes fairytales, children’s books and poetry and prose for adults. Tellegen began his writing career as a poet. In 1984 he published Er ging geen dag voorbij (Not a Day Went By), his first collection of animal stories for children. Four more collections were to follow and all these stories were then collected in Misschien wisten zij alles (Perhaps They Knew Everything, 1995). Two of Tellegen’s books feature the elephant as the main character: in Jannes (1993), an elephant leads the protected life of a young child in a world in which every being wears a trunk. In Teunis (1996), on the other hand, the main character is the only elephant in a world of human beings, which results in the humorous description of the struggle of someone who is ‘different’. Besides his animal stories, Tellegen also created Juffrouw Kachel (Miss Stove, 1991), the terror of all schoolchildren, and Mijn vader (My Father, 1994), a loving portrait of the world’s most amazing father. It is no surprise that he has won both the Theo Thijssen Prize (an oeuvre award for writers of books for children and young adults) and the Constantijn Huygens Prize for his entire oeuvre
Ingrid Godon (b. 1958) has enjoyed international acclaim for her illustrations. Her picture books include the hugely successful Wat moeten we doen met de Boe-hoe baby? (What Shall We Do with the Boo-Hoo Baby?), which has been translated into 10 languages.
Quotes
Tellegen’s animal stories are irresistible.
Elsevier
He creates literature of wonderment. For children. And for those few adults who are still capable of wonder.
De Groene Amsterdammer
The words and pictures complement each other perfectly.
De Morgen
Translations
- Jutri je bila zabava. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 2010
- Continued...
Rights sold
- Patmos (Düsseldorf, )
- Continued...