2008

CŪKMENS HAS BECOME A CHARACTER OF A CHILDRENS’ BOOK

The outcome of a joint creative activity of Liels un Mazs Publishers and AS AS Latvijas valsts meži is a publication of a book for school-children: The Fat Stranger or Adventures and Trials of Christer, the Five-grader and the Invincible Pigman.

The author Māris Bērziņš is known in Latvia for his two formerly published books for adults. The protagonists of one of them is the dreamer Ēriks Traums, while the other features a robust philosopher of absurdism, called Gutenmorgen. The present book features the Pigman, a character well-known to children who first conquered his place in publicity as the main protagonist of the environmental campaign "Don’t soil the forest!" run by AS Latvijas valsts meži.

Traditional motives of the folklore have been often exploited by writers of the children’s' books, however this is the first time when the character produced in Latvia for an add campaign has proved to possess a strong literary potential. The heroes of ancient tales fought dragons, mean bears and vicious sorcerers while Pigman was born to fight the contemporary vice: waste and litter. “The appearance of such hero is inevitable, for he embodies our yearning to overcome our own narrow-mindedness and indifference destroying our forests, our sea and the whole world around us,” Inese Zandere, Editor in Chief of the Publishers Liels un mazs, admits.