In this unusual fairy-tale, the story depicts “fairy tales” from people living in a modern European city.

It turns out that each story-teller has another cultural background, and every story represents another culture, with ancient roots and sometimes from very far away. There are fifteen fairy-tales in the book, and therefore fifteen different cultures reflected, from Finnish and Swedish to Chinese, Russian and Indian.

Bringing the work in this book to life has been a challenge for the illustrator. I decided to use fabrics from different cultures as the background for my pictures, to achieve the diversity of styles, textures and patterns. After searching for fabrics, scanning and photographing them, I had the freedom to make collages from the textiles as well as digitally draw on the backgrounds.

Acknowledgements for providing help in my search for textiles:
Natalia Konradova, Vera Hlebnikova, Marina Magidovich,
Tatjana, Ekaterina ja Maria Protassova, Anja Mäkitalo.
Intian Bazaari, La Morena restaurant, carpet shops in Fredrikinkatu (Helsinki)
Chinese shop (Copenhagen)

140 x 200 mm, 252 pgs, full color, hard cover, 55 big pictures (one-page or double-page size), several small vignettes

© Milena Parland, text
© Alexander Reichstein, illustrations, cover, graphic design
Translated into Finnish: Susanna Hirvikorpi

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