На път
By: Mila Yaneva
Publisher: Self-published, Bulgaria, 2021
Format: Hardback
A wonderful world of travel
Remember Covid? How we all sat in our houses, dreaming of travelling? It was tough, but the upside of the isolation was the increase in art, literature and music that was being made. Mila Yaneva-Tabakova's book На път (translates to "On the way") is a direct result of the pandemic. The author sat in her garden, dreaming of the world - and therefore created a silent book about all the ways to travel.
Even if you can't read Bulgarian, the theme of the book is obvious from the cover, which pictures cars, trains, planes and boats. The book is divided into five chapters: One for each mode of transport, and then a very clever last chapter that ties the previous chapters together. The four first chapters follows a steady rythm: Two and a half (a blank left page marks the beginning of each new chapter) spreads of panels, followed by a large illustration over a double spread. The panels vary a little in size and shape to match the story, like the example in the picture above, where a woman looks through her binocular in one panel, and we see what she is looking at through binocular-shaped panels.
Yaneva-Tabakova has created a colorful and beautiful world, shown both in the color scheme of the illustrations, and in the diversity of the characters that are portrayed. Some illustration are site-specific, like the train station below that is actually located in Bulgaria, other illustrations are from around the world, making this a book where most readers will be able to find both something familiar and something new and exotic.
The fifth and last chapter hides a clever and delightful visual surprise. Suddenly, the gorgeous colors seems to have disappeared, and the world is black and white. What is going on? A full spread in black and white (the bottom picture of this page) is followed by a full spread of the same motiv in full color. Or - is it the exact same motiv? This is a fun puzzle to figure out together! It requires the reader to go back and interpret a little, and to ponder about the differences between the two almost identical illustrations, a task that will be both amusing and great for developing visual literacy.
Yaneva-Tabakova has made a beautiful book that will appeal to everyone that loves to travel, even the ones that are too young to remember Covid. На път will also be a perfect travel companion for any family, regardless of they are going by plane, car, train or boat!
