Meet the illustrator Julia Gukova from Russia

 Image source

I watch a lot. I try to look carefully at everything I'm attracted to - interesting pictures, photographs - trying to grasp what I need in my work. ... By the way the less text the better - this gives more room for imagination.  

Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature Johns Hopkins University Press Volume 59, Number 4, 2021 p. 48

Today I am sharing the work of another illustrator nominated for the prestigious IBBY Hans Christian Andersen award. Yulia Valentinovna Gukova was born in 1961 in Moscow. She has illustrated more than 50 books that have been widely translated, including classics such as Thumbelina by H.C. Andersen and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, as well as The Magic Land of Oz and the Wizard of Oz by L.F. Baum. Here is her web site. And here you can see may examples of her art. 

Her five books submitted for judging for the Hans Christian Andersen Award are  “Velikiy Charodei strani OZ” (The Great Wizard of Oz) and “Chudesnaya strana OZ” (Wonderful country of OZ, both written by Lyman Frank Baum), “12 sov” (12 owls, written by Andrey Usachev and Galina Dydina), “Serena and the Wild Doll” (written by Philip Coristine) and “Puteshestvie v Novyi God” (A journey into the New Year, written by Eduard Uspenskiy).

"Often in her illustrations, she seems to break out of the book page, offering the reader to continue on their own, to extend in their imagination the panorama of a bizarre world that has become accessible to the human eye thanks to the talent of the artist."  Kircbs

Mouse is determined to figure out who stole his delicious collection of raspberries and starts by questioning Raven, but when Raven denies any involvement, 

Mouse has to follow other clues to locate his missing goods. Book Depository

See the art from this book here.

Luminous, lovely paintings illustrated this enchanted tale about the power of belief and 

the wonder of the legendary unicorn. Book Depository

Read more about this book in this Quill and Quire review

See some art from this book here.

Alice in Wonderland by Yulia Gukova stands out for its sharp modernity of approach, 

the geometrically clear alignment of the book space, a subtle understanding of 

the nature of Carroll's fantasy and Carroll's humour. Kircbs

Stars and Poppy Seeds by Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lisiv

You never fail until you stop trying - Albert Einstein

Flora loves to count perhaps because her parents are mathematicians and she has probably been exposed to numbers all through her childhood.

"While other children counted sheep to fall asleep, Flora counted all the animals of the world. She even counted sea cows, elephants and platypuses"

Platypuses!  This book was originally written in Russian by Ukrainian husband and wife Andriy Lisiv and Romana Romanyshyn. I love that they have included our platypus. I find this delightful and amazing. Here is the word platypus in Russian script:  утконос

I am collecting Picture books translated into English. I am guessing this beautiful book came to the attention of Tate Publishing because the work of Romana and Andriy has received special mentions at the Bologna Ragazzi awards several times. Stars and Poppy Seeds was first published in 2014 with the English language edition produced in 2019 with a translation by Oksana Lushchevska. In this post for Seven Impossible Things Oksana talks about five very special Ukrainian picture books and her passion for sharing these with the world.

Begin with the end papers which are different forms of grid or graph paper. Flora counts ants, buttons and button holes, Polka dots and pearls. Flora tries to count the stars in the night sky. She devises complex mathematical formulas but this seems to be an impossible task. Her parents encourage. "Every task, even the most complicated, begins the same way with one step. If you take small steps, you can achieve even your biggest dreams."

The final pages contain figures relating to the universe:

• As of June 2018, 561 people have gone to space but only twelve have walked on the moon.
• There are 9,096 stars visible to the naked eye in the night sky.
• You could fit in million earths into the sun!

On the next page you can read about some famous mathematicians - Pythagoras; Sir Isaac Newton; Ada Lovelace; Albert Einstein; Katherine Johnson and Stephen Hawking.

The last spread has a list of museums from around the world which celebrate mathematics including our Sydney Observatory.

The whole book is a glorious celebration of the wonders of numbers; the enormity of the universe; and the determination of a young girl to satisfy her curiosity. Book design and art students are sure to love exploring the art used in this book which looks very different from our Australian children's picture books.

Stars and Poppy Seeds has been translated into French, Korean, Spanish and English. Here is the cover of the Russian edition:

Here is my favourite page - I used to love completing dot to dot puzzles and like Flora, I am also a person who loves to count things but perhaps not quite as many things as Flora!

You can see more pages from this book at Behance.

Here are two new picture books (in English)  by Romana and Andriy: