Ø
By: Anna Jacobina Jacobsen
Publisher: Jensen & Dalgaard, Denmark, 2021
Format: Hardback
On loneliness and mermaids
Imagine a dull morning. Life feels grey. You prepare your breakfast with little enthusiasm. You open your can of sardines only to find... a mermaid!
This is the beginning of "Ø", a gorgeous gem of a book from Danish artist Anna Jacobina Jacobsen. "Ø" is a letter in the Danish alphabeth, but also the Danish word for "Island". And the shape of the letter is similar to the shape of the little, round island in this book. This is where we find our heroine, a little girl living all alone in the grey surroudings, her eyes filled with loneliness and sadness. Until breakfast, and the arrival of the mermaid. With the mermaid comes color and wonder and play.
The book reaches a dramatic highlight when the mermaid disappears, but it does end happily. Well, for most child readers it will. Some adult readers might find an eerie quality to the ending...how many little girls have disappeared into the water?
"Ø" is a thing of beauty. The drawings, the gentle colorings, the format and paper quality all work perfectly together. The large format (25x33 cm) allows the authors drawings to really shine. They all have lots of details and are very vivid. Jacobsen has an edge to her drawings, adding extra interest to the reading. A book about a mermaid could very easily have become something sugary sweet, like the glittering mermaids in toys and cartoons. But mermaids are mythical, mysterious creatures, and I think the illustrations capture this mythical essence in a brilliant way, while also making room for nuances and a wide range of feelings.
Jacobsen uses the pages to create the perfect reading rythm, here are giant double spreads, multi-panel pages and single-image pages, making the reading pace ebb and flow like the water surrounding the island.
I see this book working with a large range of audiences, kids, teens and adults alike. It has room for so many stories, and for both silly conversations on mermaids and sardines, and important conversations on friendship and loneliness.
The mermaid is an important symbol in Danish culture due to H.C. Andersens famous fairytale and the legendary mermaid statue in Copenhagen. With this book, Jacobsen uses this tradition to create a story that feels new and interesting, a mermaid tale for our time.
This is Anna Jacobina Jacobsen´s first silent book, her first second, equally beatiful wordless publication is "Kanin" ("Rabbit"), published in 2023 (review to come!)
