Anna-Clara Tidholm

Then already by the beginning
of the 1980’s did they develop their
joint view of the picture book as
story telling without the need of
traditional (adult) dramaturgy,
since children have not acquired
the same literary expectations as
adults, they “assemble” a plot on
significantly looser grounds, as in
this case, scene after scene linked
together into a rather loose, open
and impressionist construction.
In 1987 their book “Resan till
Ugri-la-Brek” was published (“The
Journey to Ugri-la-Brek”, awarded
with the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
1992). Here two children are
looking for their grandfather.
Anna-Clara Tidholm shows how
they, a bit afraid and lost, look into
his apartment, the door ajar behind
them and the dog in front of
them in the room, the apartment
is empty, his eye glasses still there
thus leaving him without the ability
to fill in the form for the foot-
6
ball pools. Then after the children
after many adventures and a long
journey to “the Other side of the
World” find him to hand him his
eyeglasses, she chooses the same
composition, the same scenography,
to demonstrate how limited
and dependent on reality the imagination
of children is.
In the parallel image, the children
display the same hesitation as
in the first picture, the open door
behind them and the dog in front of
them, in the same yet slightly different
room. Their grandfather is sitting
in his chair and reassures them
that he is fine and that he does not
need his eyeglasses any more.
They cannot imagine his new existence
differently: that grandfather
perhaps (probably) is dead is never
mentioned or shown. This fact has
to be concluded by every child who
is prepared to do so. The pictures
(as well as text) express their only
possible perspective, the child’s perspective,
and they are in this sense
profoundly “childological”.