STONE IS NOT COLD
Sasek Miroslav 

When I discovered the existence of this book it was love at first sight. 

It was published in 1961 by the London publishing house WH Allen. Children's books from the 1960s and 1970s seem incredible to me, amazing even today.

The author,Sasek Miroslav, is a Prague illustrator born in 1916.

After studying architecture, he completed his training with studies in drawing and painting.

In Paris, where he had moved, he began work on an illustrated guide to the city for children entitledThis is Paris, which was published by WH Allen & Co in 1959.

This first work on cities, acclaimed by the public and critics, was followed by other illustrated children's guides: London (1959), Rome (1960), New York (1960), Edinburgh (1961), Munich (1961), Venice ( 1961), San Francisco (1962), Israel (1962), Cape Canaveral (1963), Ireland (1964), Hong Kong (1965), Greece (1966), Texas (1967), the United Nations (1968), Washington DC (1969), Australia (1970) and Historic Britain (1974).

In total he made 18 books of the collection.

The books in the seriesThis is... have received important awards, among them the prize for the best illustrated children's book of the year 1959, organized by the newspaperThe New York Times, byThis is LondonYThis is New Yorkk in 1960.

His work deserved an entry in the Honor List of the International Organization for Juvenile Books (IBBY) in 1979. 

His books have been translated into many languages: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese, Finnish, Korean and Japanese.

Among Miroslav's books, Stone is not cold is unique.

Both for its theme -it is not, in fact, a guide to a city- and for the visual language used. We find here photographs of famous classical statues preserved in the museums of Rome and pen and ink drawings. A black and white book consisting of a mix of collage and illustrations.

Classical sculptures are updated, that is, they are transformed, thanks to the insertion of drawn details, into contemporary characters that come to life and find themselves involved in strange and surreal situations.

Irony, the playful, almost cartoonish comic game, cross the pages of this book as irreverent as it is fun and aesthetically refined.

An authentic jewel to be rediscovered.

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