Children’s and Young Adult | English sample translation available
The 2014 Magnesia Litera in the category of Books for Children and Young Adults as well as the 2014 Most Beautiful Czech Book of the Year, followed by the Golden Ribbon in the category of Artistic achievement of the year. Few books have received so many accolades. So what’s it about? It’s about the head. The head – that round thing between our ears? Ah, but there’s a lot more to it than that. According to the authors, the head is quite fascinating – it tells us what there is to see and hear, what something smells or tastes like. The head is the management centre of the body because our brain remembers everything – who I am, who you are, and how we can reach each other when we want to put our heads together. In short, the head is the most important part of the body, and the more you look into it, the more you realize that you need at least a small encylopedia to describe everything that is in it and connected to it.
The Head in the Head is an unusual and original publication, the first Czech “headopedia”, aimed principally at child readers, which uses an imaginative and playful visual format to help them grasp the basic facts about the head, the brain, and how they work. The result is a visually inventive and poetic book combining humour, fun and information, in which children’s inquisitive questions are answered by, among others, a neurologist, a boxer and a detective.
Praise
“The authors have created a book which offers much more than just a few observations about the head and how it works. In 120 pages it demonstrates how it is possible to work with a book as an object. Böhm conceived each page in a completely different way. Sometimes he used simple comic-book-style illustrations; elsewhere he cut out an opening to the next page and Buddeus filled it with stories.”
— Judita Matyášová, Lidové noviny
“It is a work which blurs the boundaries of age – similar publications usually boast that they are intended for 9- to 99-year-olds.”
— Magnesia Litera jury
