Jelena fliegtYou don’t have to be big and fat in order to know what it would feel like. Not to fit into your clothes and not to fit in anywhere. This is what Jelena suffered.

Jelena was so fat and so tall that she didn’t fit into her mother’s small shooting gallery. And as the funfair travelled from one place to the next, she had to repeat every school class. She no longer fitted behind the tiny school desks. Jelena had only two friends: Mrs Sweet from the candyfloss stall and Mr Power from the ring-the-bell. Once none of the funfair visitors wanted to hit it, even though there was a balloon to be won for every metre it would rise. That’s when Jelena picked up the hammer and hit it so hard that the picker flew right into the sky! She won all the balloons and when Mr Power had tied them all to Jelena, she became very light. So light that she began to lift off …

by Sonja Bougaeva & Viola Rohner 

“This poetic picture book emphatically tells of the feeling of heavy earthiness and the uplifting experience of lightness, but also of the discovery of one’s own strength. Sonja Bougaeva bathes the soft tones of the narration in atmospheric colours.” – Bücherlust, April 2015

Peter Hammer Verlag | hc | 24 pp | 300 x 210 mm | 2015 | 5+

All rights available

[original title: Jelena fliegt]