LITTLE ALMA ON A GREAT JOURNEY

NOMINATED FOR THE BEST PICTURE BOOK IN SLOVENIA IN 2020 (THE KRISTINA BRENKOVA AWARD)

Written by Huiqin Wang and Milan Dekleva
Illustrations by Huiqin Wang

This picture book (in two languages) about Alma Karlin is by painter Huiqin Wang – both of them strong women artists. Slovenian-Chinese painter Huiquin Wang pays tribute to Alma Maksimiljan Karlin, one of the best known and most courageous Slovenian women, on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of Karlin’s birth and the 100th anniversary of the start of her journey around the world. Poet, writer and translator Milan Dekleva authors the text accompanying the pictures, addressing both children and adults as his audience. The picture book takes us on a journey with Alma to distant worlds and far corners of the globe: from London across Italy to South America, then to Japan and all the way to the first homeland of the painter, to China. In a poetic manner the pictures draw us into a mysterious world full of adventure. The picture book is an artistic expression of Alma’s impressions. Alma spent eight years travelling, spoke ten languages, learned about local ways of life, observed and recorded their habits, customs, and traditions. She wrote about
everything she observed and after returning home to Celje, she gave lectures and devoted herself to writing stories, novels, and poems. Huiqin Wang’s fourth picture book, this story expresses the power and attraction of little Alma on her great journey. Those who think only of themselves go through life alone and abandoned; those who know how to adapt with love and turn things around to a happy ending, who are always willing to come to the aid of others and share with them—for such people, life is a flourishing meadow and the traces of their work live on even after death. (Alma Maksimilijana Karlin, Under the Bushy Eyebrow, 1938)

Format: 20.5 x 26 cm | 32 pages | Age: 5+