Rain
Anders Holmer
- Original Title
- Regn
- Published
- Natur & Kultur, 2018
- Genre
- Picture books
- Pages
- 32
- Rights Sold
- English North America
French
Danish
Croatian
Yiddish
Romani
Meänkieli
Swedish
- Tags
- Anders Holmer, Natur & Kultur, Regn
Rain
Anders Holmer
Rain has just fallen, a baby tooth is loose, a beetle stands up soaked and dazed on the gravel, a mole is lurking underground while a guy on a horse gets a phone call from his grandmother. In other places the snow is melting, and the butterflies soon expected to arrive. Today’s paper is dropped from a suspension bridge and two best friends forget to be angry when a rain of flowers falls.
On the overall theme of rain, this book depicts different magnificent and extraordinary places around the world. Each spread represents a new world full of subtle details and ingenious humor. Anders Holmer portrays in his unique way what is going on in that moment in that specific place. Short haiku texts accompany the grandiose spreads.
Anders Holmer made his debut last year with Allting händer (It Happens). He has already been established as an artist with his own, but internationally viable, style. With a unique and low-key humor and a precision beyond the ordinary.
Watch Anders present a virtual reading of Rain below! The video also includes a tour of his studio in Göteborg and his sacred and serene hideaway place in Bohuslän, Sweden. Surrounded by the majestic landscape of the Bohuslän coastline, Anders introduces us to his art-making and drawing process, as well as his working methods:
Books by Anders Holmer
- Press voices
The impact of haiku and illustrations by Swedish creator Holmer (Everything Happens!) is muted—at first. The short poems, as the title promises, examine rainy weather. A series of landscapes, all double-page paintings, span the globe and feature a collection of curious, unexpected scenarios. Someone drops a newspaper off a rope bridge in the Himalayas. In a downpour on a street in some tropical city, “The car radio/ plays a song about the sun,/ but no one hears it.” A person rows through a bayou with a donkey for a passenger. The paintings, friezelike sweeps in quiet earth tones, hold interest in every corner, brushed in delicate, even exquisite detail. Verse and image combine over the pages to create a distinctive view of the world—puckish (“Beneath ashes are/ seeds for a new forest that/ might burn someday too”) and attuned to events large and small (in a spread of children riding horses in a driving rain, “Hooves thunder above/ moles digging underground, and/ Grandma is calling”). Incident, humor, and close observation all conspire to invite readers to see rain—and the world—in new ways. Ages 4–8. - Publisher's Weekly
"A unique read-aloud that blends world cultures, poetic form, and natural splendor." - Kirkus (Starred review)- Awards
Nominated for the August prize 2018 - The jury's motivation: "In a picture book that invites to reflection, the reader is taken on a poetic rain trip around the world. It’s mood-driven picture book art, where each spread surprise with its subtle humor, taking the reader to different scenes and landscapes where rain might pour in the form of seeds or cherry blossoms. Succinct, ingenious haiku lines stimulate imagination and playfulness. It is easy to meditatively sink into Anders Holmer’s world of rain. Which rain dream would you like to step into?"
White Ravens 2018
Selected to The Original Art exhibit at the Museum of American Illustration