Gravenstein
By: Øyvind Torseter
Publisher: Cappelen Damm, Norway, 2009
Format: Hardcover
Apples and elephants
If anyone could make a successful suspense-story about apples (!) it would be Øyivind Torseter. He is acknowledged as one of the most prominent contemporary artists and illustrators in Norway, and his work is also critically acclaimed internationally. Torseter works with both digital and traditional techniques to create illustrations that seem playful and simple, but often have emotionally charged themes. For the majority of his titles the visual storytelling is the most important, and in some books, like Gravenstein, the text has been cut down to such a minimum that they can be read as silent books/nearly-wordless books.
Torseter has a fascinating universe of characters, and some of these make apperances in several books. In Gravenstein, both the protagonist Elefantgutten ("Elephant boy") and the girl Miss will be already familiar for his readers. Gravenstein is a book in two chapters, or rather two stories intersecting in one book. In the first part, Elephant boy is chased into a deep hole by a scary group of bullies. He is stuck, having only apples for food and company, unable to get out. In the second part, Miss and her apple-crazed dad find Elephant boy while hiking and feeding apples to cows. There is a rescue operation, and an action-packed ending where they are once again chased by bullies, but manage to escape by bathtub.
A muted or restricted color scheme is one of Torseter's signatures. The illlustrations in Gravenstein are drawn in black and white ink, with golden yellow details accentuating important characters, actions and objects, working as a guide for the reader to navigate the story. As soon as our three heroes are in safety, their world turns more colorful: blues, greens and browns are now introduced. The book has a happy ending, a lovely full spread showing the three of them enjoying each others company and - of course - apples. The action-packed theme is emphasized by the fact that some of the illustrations appear to have been made in a hurry, like the ones where small paper notes with corrections are glued on top of the original illustration.
There are a few pages of text in this book, but none of the words are really important for the meaning-making. The introductory text works really well: a short, juicy and poetic ode to apples. The text introducing the second part of the book seems more redundant: It tells of how Miss' dad loves apples, but this fact is already very obvious to the reader - apples are pictured everywhere in their apartment, they even fill up their bathtub.
Torseter is one of very few Norwegian children's book authors that uses the book as an artistic object, making the format of the book part of his storytelling. Hullet and Hullet 2 are the most famous examples of this, but Gravenstein also stands out. It's tiny, the size of a postcard, which makes it quite thick due to the number of pages, and this choice of size, combined with the golden yellow cover, makes the reader think of a juicy, golden apple. An original format for a children's book, but it works perfectly.
Gravenstein is a fun and original book that will delight readers - and lovers of apples - of all ages. We will review more of Torseter's titles with time, so please stay tuned!
