'Eyes of the Forest', a children's book about nature and our relationship with our ancestors
- Illustrator and biologist together making a story: Ainara Azpiazu Aduriz “Axpi” and Iñaki Sanz Azkue presented this Wednesday the children’s book Basbasbaso begi. The editorial Lamiñarra has published this work that has been promoted by the Museum of the Witches of Zugarramurdi.
“It’s a little weird for a biologist to make an illustrated children’s album,” explains Sanz Azkue in the book’s presentation. Anyway, this is not the first time he writes fiction stories, as in previous years he also presented himself to a couple of literary contests, and in one of them he received a prize. “Baiz is a person who likes to work different things. Why not make a little story?”
He wrote a story related to mythology, he tested it on the children of the house and decided not to leave the work he did on a file on his computer. “I saw perfectly that if someone had to make illustrations, that was Ainara.”
According to Azpiazu, the proposal came to him just as he had just delivered a series of works for the Museum of the Witches of Zugarramurdi. “Here’s where Iñaki sends me a text related to the basajaun. I said: ‘Jo Iñaki, I just handed over the designs of some characters, including Basajaun; and the choice I see now to do this is to introduce it to Ainhoa. See if it goes ahead.’ It was a kind of carambola, from there it arises.”
The protagonist of the story is a child named Myeltxo. Myeltxo and the bunch of grass he does with his grandfather. And also a owl that's nearby. Each of these characters in the story will have different meanings throughout the story, in a special publication dealing with our relationship with nature, transmission and the mysteries of life.
They've wanted to make an open story, with creative possibilities for the little ones. “Some may say in reading it that this is a story of tales of an era,” explains Sanz Azkue. “For me one of the main challenges of the book has been that one character was three characters at a time: when to do one, when to do another, when not to do one or the other... you cannot do everything and my difficulties have been there, because if everything has been given too much in sight, I will take away the magic to the story.”
Saran egingo da urriaren 11 eta 12an, eta aurtengoa laugarren edizioa izango da.
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