Taming hearts
By: Agnes Kleman
Publisher: Weeskinders, Hungary, 2025
Format: Hardback
Entangled love
In her debut silent book, Taming Hearts, artist Ágnes Kleman invites the reader to reflect upon one of life's largest questions: love.
The complexity of love and relationships are themes that are perfect for silent books, as they are so difficult to describe in words. Kleman uses only fineliners, pencils and ink to reach the readers' hearts. Through these materials, and the use of white space where the reader are invited to fill in the blanks, Kleman creates both the space and the content needed to dwelve into life largest quest: That of making ourselves vulnerable to love, and to show our whole being to another person.
In doing so, Kleman has used two techniques very common in silent books: The use of a line to tie the story together, and the use of the color red to highlight important parts of the actions. But Kleman's way of using the line is highly original, as it does not simply guide the reader through the pages. Instead, they form a complex visual language of their own, adding depths to the characters, showing the complexity of their feelings and giving the reader references for adding their own emotions to the story.
Kleman describes all aspects of love and relationships: The hope and the hopelessness, the joy and the despair, the trust and the betrayals. The book is filled with meaningful symbols, cultural references and drama. The illustrations range from the breathtakingly beautiful to the grotesque.
Taming Hearts is a wonderful example of a silent book that is not made for children, but for an audience of teenagers and adults. It is a book to be read and reread - the story will offer comfort when love is tough and celebration when it is easy. Taming Hearts is published by Weeskinders, an all-silent book publisher. Their expertise in silent books is evident through the perfect choice of format, and also the amazing end-papers: The front and back end-papers brilliantly sums up the entire story.
