With Fairy Tales (On the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Ele Peroci)

We are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Ela Peroci's birth with the book Med pravljice - a collection of her most beautiful and famous fairy tales.Among them are six legendary picture books with exquisite illustrations that have been etched in the memories of several generations of children in our country. Three fairy tales have been newly illustrated for this book.

The anniversary collection brings together nine fairy tales, classics of contemporary Slovenian fairy tales:My Umbrella Can Be a Balloon, The Little House of Cubes, Nina in Wonderland, The Cat in the Slippers, Amalija and Amalija, which were illustrated by excellent Slovenian illustrators: Marlenka Stupica, Lidija Osterc, Jelka Reichman, Ančka Gošnik Godec and Anka Luger Peroci. The Old House No. 3 was newly illustrated for this book by Tanja Komadina, Smetano by Maja Kastelic, and Aunt Bajavaje's Glasses were illustrated for this book by Peter Škerl.

Both of the writer's daughters participated in the creation of the book: in addition to Anka L. Peroci with illustrations, Jelka Pogačnik with an introductory word. The personally intoned foreword about "Aunt Ela" was written by Peter Svetina, which places the writer at the very "top of European post-war authorial fairy tales."

Fairy tales as a conversation with children

Ela Peroci touched young readers with a special grace, an easy transition into imagination and a subtle ear for their hardships. In interviews, she repeatedly emphasized: "I don't write for children, I write to children and that's how I talk to them." Therefore, we can say that there is practically no child in Slovenia who did not grow up with fairy tales such as Puca copatarica, Moj dežnik je lakno balon, Hišica iz kock (The Little House of Cubes), which have also been translated into numerous foreign languages.

In the intertwining of reality and imagination

Already the first fairy tale by Ela Peroci, My Umbrella Can Be a Balloon, shows all the dimensions of her fairy tales, which are dictated by a restless child's soul and boundless imagination. Jelka escapes the angry gaze of her family by closing her eyes and flying with an umbrella to the fairyland of Klobučarija, where, with Vsevid's help, she also finds a ball that she had dropped in the water.

Fairy tales about everyday things

Peroci's poetic way of transforming ordinary and simple things into an exciting fantasy world is a peculiar one. The cat in slippers was born, so to speak, on the road. "Anka drove, Jelka walked. For a while it was fun for everyone, but then the one who was walking suddenly got fed up... She sat down resolutely on the ground and said that she demanded a fairy tale, since she couldn't drive." And the writer, willy-nilly, began to tell the story, weaving the story and unraveling it during three walks over the next few days.

A subtle sense of injustice and other themes

When an innocent child, such as Nežiko in Smetana's fairy tale, is "heartbroken" by the bad behavior of an adult, Perocijeva caresses his soul by making him a hero who far surpasses an adult in courage and compassion. In addition to the lost ball and forgotten slippers, the stories included in this book also focus on an old abandoned house in which children settle, revive it during play and prevent its demolition (Old House No. 3), miraculous glasses that expand the view into other worlds (Aunt Bajavaja's Glasses) and Fairy Tales Live in a Big Old Town, which tells of children's great desire for fairy tales.

Most read, awarded, popular

Ela Peroci has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Golden Book plaque three times, the Levstik Award twice, the International Youth Literature Association (IBBY) diploma twice, the Prešeren Fund Award and other awards. Her fairy tales also set sales records. Since the publication of the fairy tale My Umbrella Can Be a Balloon (1955), more than a hundred thousand copies have been printed. And her most famous fairy tale, The Cat in the Slippers, has also been printed in more than a hundred thousand copies.

MEDIA ABOUT THE BOOK:

"For me, Ela Peroci was Aunt Ela. My brother and I grew up with her fairy tales. Now that I observe her work from a distance, as a literary historian, I see more and more that she is one of the fundamental authors of European literature after the Second World War, who began to see the child as a child, not as an object that must be subservient to adults. She constantly takes his side, demanding that he must have imagination, that he must be safe and that he must play." - Peter Svetina on Ars radio

"Ela Peroci was well ahead of her time: self-mockery, the inclusion of a first-person narrator in the narrative, and a whole range of modern literary procedures were intuitively used by this author, who many called her the "Slovenian Andersen". She introduced several important innovations to children's storytelling, among other things, she took children's play as a fundamental activity and developed a whole range of narrative patterns. Most of her works are characterized by an imaginative level of action, created by the child." - Večer