How to use this Page

I realise that the last update I gave of our progress in the PaperTigers Reading the World Challenge 2009 was just beyond the half-way point - however, the deadline was over a month ago now, at the end of July, so I thought I’d better round it off!

For our last three books we read together:

Toad Away by Morris Gleitzman (Puffin, 2004). All about a brave cane toad wanting to make friends with the human race and traveling with two cousins to the Amazon to find out the secret of their ancestors as to how to achieve this… My two loved this and laughed uproariously at the rather revolting antics that cane toads are wont to get up to. I have to admit that I would probably have encouraged them to read this one on their own if I’d realised at the outset what it was going to be like - but actually, it was good to be a part of something that so appealed to their typical-boy sense of humor…

Super Jack by Susanne Gervay, illustrated by Cathy Wilcox (Angus & Robertson, 2003). The sequel to I Am Jack, this story focuses on Jack’s relationship with his family, especially the newly-introduced son of Rob, his Mum’s boy-friend. A family holiday intended to help everyone get to know each other is certainly eventful before the desired outcome is achieved… This is to be recommended to older children who may be trying to make sense of complex family relationships in their own lives.

Tom Crean’s Rabbit: A True Story from Scott’s Last Voyage by Meredith Hooper, illustrated by Bert Kitchen (Frances Lincoln, 2005). A very special, true story which is a great way to introduce early Antarctic exploration to young children - you can read a review from Create Readers here. This had the added kudos for my children of being a story which their grandad, who spent a year in the Antarctic quite a long time ago now, did not know…

Older Brother rounded off his Book Challenge with The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom by Bettye Stroud and illustrated by Erin Susanne Bennet (Candlewick Press, 2005); Not so Fast Songololo by Niki Daly (Frances Lincoln, 2001); and a launch into the Asterix books by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.

Little Brother read: The Two-Hearted Numbat by Ambelin & Ezekiel Kwaymullina (Fremantle Press, 2008); The Shaman’s Apprentice by Lynne Cherry (also the illustrator) and Mark J. Plotkin (Voyager Books, Harcourt, 2001) (which Older Brother had also read…); and Babu’s Song by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen and illustrated by Aaron Boyd (Lee & Low, 2003).

If you took part in this year’s Challenge, it would be great to hear from you - whether you completed it or not.

Next year may or may not follow a similar rubric - we are open to suggestions…

Cool

The Addictive Weirdness of Mattias Adolfsson – Swedish illustrator and  Europe’s Bizarrio No. 1

Jennifer: I hesitate to ask, your right brain is so hyperactively active who knows what it will let loose, but from where does all this creativity come! Inherited, evolved or from somewhere, dare I ask where, else?

Mattias: Evolved perhaps, but It might have been inherited from my father. My Father was a very funny man, he never got to get an education but I think he had great potential as a Illustrator as well. He came from poor conditions though and had to leave school early.

The Melon Mine Ball House

Bird of Paradise

Sketched Whilst Wandering

The Frontline Sky Ark

Jennifer: As a kid, did you get the bedtime story treatment? What were you favourite stories? What were the illustrations/illustrators you remember most vividly?

Mattias: I really can’t remember getting the bedtime story treatment, but my mother started sticking books in my hands at an early stage (she continued until late in my teens suggesting books, she still does it). I’m rather Euroscentric in my upbringing, my favourite Illustrators as a child where: Oscar Andersson,  Tove Janson , Kjell Aukrust ,  and with Richard Scarry as an exception to the rule.

Osckar Andersson

Tove Janson

Kjell Aukrust

Richard Scarry / Scary

As for stories, I early got hooked on European (gallic) comics, Tintin and Asterix, I used to read them and still do.

Herge's Tintin

Jennifer’s Comment: I think readers will agree there are some  curious elements of these influences seeping through.

[Mad's master of detailed mayhem can't help himself, even his website in seminal form features, Groo, an example of his madcap  characterisations.]

All three artists have an anarchic humour both lauding and subverting utopian ideals and just about everything else in between, Herge, of course, being the subtle one of the three. Where do readers see Mattias flitting in and out of here?

Jennifer: You refer to your love of Mad Magazine’s Sergio Aragones what drives you to detail so transfixing, so almost maddeningly effusive? It is an art in itself to take in all of some of your creations at once! [Can we accuse you of having anything to do with behind the scenes of Where’s Wally?]!

Mattias:

I think the main influence in this is the books of Richard Scary, (where’s Wally is not something I have seen, but I’ve heard it mentioned often). Sometimes I get a craving for leaving the very detailed work as it is hard to take it in, it is lousy as traditional art.

[Note from Jennifer: No, Mattias please don't. We LOVE the detail!]

"Soupilification" Tree

Big Red Animal Bus

Sargasso

Death-Star

The detail is mindblowing and maniacal and insidiously addictive. You could study it for hours and still pick out new facets.

Jennifer: I think I mentioned to you once how your incredible machines reminded me of the crazy inventions depicted by Heath Robinson last century. You feature many maniacal machines in your work, what is the fascination?

Mattias: I’m not sure, to be frank I’m not that into machines, sometimes I use the drawing as some kind of meditation, they start to live by themselves.

[Jennifer: The Machine has a life. Mattias' machines have a humour and character like no other I have seen comparable.]

Horse Powers

City Dweller

Jogger

Migration2

Jenny Wagner once said that no children’s book should have a mchine at its heart. In the case of Mattias’ robottic house machines, I would have to disagree. They verge into the realm of the Iron Man, I Robot and even Bicentennial Man. There is a drama and pathos about them that mitigates against the sometimes bleak black humour of civilisation gone  in search of itself.

Jennifer: The architectural elements of your work have also been compared to Hayao Miyazaki. What inspires you particularly about brick, stone and wood construction?  You tell how you started out to be an architect but diverged. How did that come about?

Mattias:

I love buildings and especially of the older kind. Though, when I started studying Architecture, I soon found out that I wasn’t too good designing modern houses. So now I can design what building I want, not having to think about the dwellers.

Captains

Floaters

Church

Ship of the Desert

Oltec-Space

Jennifer:  Your recent scholarship sojourn in Greece produced a wealth of work which we all saw evolve over the months on your blog site. Tell us about winning the scholarship and where you see the outworkings of that experience taking you?

Mattias: Well winning was not that hard, it goes to professional Swedish Illustrators ( and I guess not too many can leave home for one month). I’d love to do more traveling and drawing but, in order to do that, I’d have to finance it in some way, maybe via some magazine.

Jennifer’s note: Mattias sketched the most ordinary and extraordinary and made them all ‘art’. He interspersed his online blog diary with the mind expanding mischief his followeres have come to love. These, not necessarily from that period, exemplify.

Grumpy disher - dishwasher/toiletcleaner

House Flower1

Left Dragon

Learning to Fly

Over Ambitious