This album holds many surprises inside. This is the first idea that comes to mind after I've read it. Seen from the outside, editing, title, collection, all of that leads us to expect one of those stories that are so appealing to the little ones.

But from the first page we realize that this album is “different.” That the text has a terrible poetics, that it has the ability to catch the reader: “Like a stain of Chinese ink on the white rider. That’s how Bele Andrea’s shadow has fallen over the forest.” And the image there is to illustrate what the text says, looking from the sky at the shade of a crow over the snowy forest… Few colors, the combination of the different whites of the snowy places, the light brown of a few logs and the black shadow of the crow. Beautiful image made of watercolor!

The story is also curious, Mrs Ewing. Bele brings us to the Old Bear following the path of footprints planted on the ground, and the dialogue between the two animals helps us to guide the course of history, as Mrs. Bele tells the Old Osa that he woke up early, that then something stops him from sleeping, a secret. The two animals will try to figure out what the secret is – “I would give anything to find my secret,” the Old Osa tells us in a moment – and in the end, the vapor of a flower helps to decipher the secret – “The forest whispers. It cannot keep silent what it knows. Her murmur is a flower that evokes the atmosphere of a secret,” but the Osa Mayor no longer wakes up.

The text is exciting, the images are spectacular. A book too poetic to allow young children to read on their own, but beautiful to see the illustrations, enjoy and play with the details of Zuzanna Celeja.

The secret of the Osa Mayor was a spring waiting inside, in whose hope the winter, cold, snow, has been waiting in a solitary and silent environment. And when the vaho of a flower announces spring, when in the trees, in the birds, the arrival of spring spreads throughout the forest, the Old Osa sleeps (forever): “The old bear hasn’t woken up. He's dreaming of a butterfly tide."

This secret of the Osa Vieja is a wonderful album, well translated and of great literary value, even for children, very valuable in the text and also in the illustrations acquired.