Ukrainian “How War Changed Rondo” was included in Top 100 best illustrated books in the United States

The American book magazine Kirkus Reviews has officially included the Ukrainian book “The War That Changed Rondo” (“How War Changed Rondo” – in English edition) in the list of top 100 best illustrated books of the 2021 year.

The book “The War That Changed Rondo” by Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv (the Agrafka creative workshop) has been included in the list of the hundred best picture English-language books published in the United States this year.

The book for kids tells the story of Rondo city in which live fragile and vulnerable creatures, made of glass, paper or air balloon. The main characters are three friends – Danko, Zirka and Fabiyan. Into this peaceful town of light one day comes War. War brings disaster and darkness, it hurts each resident of Rondo. But three friends start do defend their city in a very creative way. The War disappears, fought with light, but leaves scars and traces. And the main symbol of Rondo city to remember war and heroes from now are red poppy flowers.

It is specified that the book was published by the Old Lion Publishing House in 2015. The book received a number of awards and was included in the annual catalog of children’s and youth literature “White Crows-2015.” It has been translated into several languages, including Italian, French, Slovak and Armenian.

The release of the American edition translated by Oksana Lushchevska entitled “How War Changed Rondo” is scheduled for December 14 at the children’s publishing house “Enchanted Lion Books.”

Meantime, the New York Times wrote the following about this book:

“When children encounter war it is not as the thing that Carl von Clausewitz called politics “by other means.” It is to their terrified eyes an impersonal force, one that takes away a parent or obliges one to hide, steals food from a plate or turns a school into rubble. War heightens the already helpless state of childhood. It removes the last vestiges of predictability and sense, offering randomness and brute violence instead — bombs that may crash through a ceiling at any moment.

The Ukrainian artists Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv understand this. It’s why — though they’ve lived through a revolution in 2013, the Crimea annexation in 2014 and the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine — there is no explanation for the catastrophes that overtake a fictional town in their picture book, “How War Changed Rondo.” War is “War,” a monstrous dark cloud that sprouts fists, reducing everything it touches to “nothingness.” It is sudden in its appearance and unrelenting in its destructiveness, like anger itself.”

Both versions Ukrainian (“The War That Changed Rondo”) as well as English (“How war changed Rondo”) are available for purchase.

More illustrations to the book you may find here.

Ukraine Front Lines

Tags: Ukraine