Piret Raud: Author – Estonia

In picture books, both the text and the images must speak to the reader – they must have an effect together, and not only for the smallest reader there is, but for adults, too.

Raud P.

estonian author-illustrator Piret Raud’s works incorporate the surreal, the absurd, and the everyday in an effortless and engaging manner. After initially publishing children’s literature anonymously for fear of being associated with her parents, whom are among Estonia’s most-loved children’s literature authors, Piret Raud soon emerged from their shadow to herself become a much-lauded author and illustrator.

Raud’s characters are a joy to discover for readers of all ages, even if her ideal readers are children up to the age of ten. In Princess Lulu and Mr. Bony, Princess Lulu is falsely chastised by her mother for using too much toothpaste; Lulu is determined to find the culprit. Much to Lulu’s surprise, the offender is a skeleton who uses the toothpaste to clean his bones. She asks the skeleton if he is a ghost:

“Nonsense!” the skeleton replied. “Ghosts don’t exist. I am a skeleton. A skeleton of flesh and bone. Well, actually just of bone. My friends just call me Mr. Bony.”

So begins their friendship and adventure. Raud’s characters and illustrations are filled with idiosyncrasies; for instance, the image of Princess Lulu, Mr. Bony (dressed in Lulu’s clothes), and Cerberus (a perch skeleton, held on a leash by Mr. Bony) on the book’s cover is typical of Raud’s untypical—and unpredictable—storylines.

Raud’s short-story collections are filled with humor and surprise. She says of her writing, “I do love this halfway house between the realistic and the absurd, this sliding from one into the other, which often arises from spontaneous word or image associations.” The thirty-two tales in Slightly Silly Stories (Natuke napakad lood) include a shy mobile phone, a princess who lies compulsively, a wicked snowman, and an overly obedient soldier—Raud’s ability to make us empathize with her characters and her memorable turns of phrase make for addictive reading.

On first impression, some of Raud’s stories may be thought too brief, but they guarantee to engage even the most resistant young reader, while keen readers will revisit the stories to discover new detail in the illustrations and to further explore the tales’ twists and turns. Not a word is wasted in Raud’s stories, which allow children to be open to possibility by breaking pre-conceived notions about what is and what can be, and which are supported by underlying values of positivity, of openness, and of hope.