Two months apart. Book review by Ainar Mielav and Andreas Steinhöfel

These works are the recently published book by Ainars Mielava “When the moon falls in the sea” with the subtitle “Words and pictures” and the book by the German author Andreas Steinhöfel “If my moon to sun”, translated into Latvian by Signe Viška. It has also just started its way to Latvian readers, and although it is a children’s book, I can safely say that it is very valuable to read and listen to it aloud for adults. too.

A true singer’s book

We know him as a musician, songwriter, but as it turns out, he once had a real education in the field of art, after graduating from the Riga High School of Applied Arts and the Academy of Arts, appearing in graphic design . Since his school days, painting has been especially close to his heart, and he is especially grateful to his teacher at the High School of Applied Arts – Silvija Jēkabson.

Basically, Ainars Mielavs once considered the possibility of connecting his life directly to painting, but – as he emphasized in the opening of the book – fate turned until he went down the path of music, and he is also very grateful to his fate for that. .

But at some point it became clear that painting is not just a thing of the past, and this moment can be considered as Ainar’s birthday eight years ago, when his easel family to him. As he said – so, he had to prove whether he was old or not, and he chose to prove that he was, and he began to paint, or “painting” as he liked to say. And very soon he regained this special feeling of painting, taste, joy of painting.

During this time, he has collected a lot of works, he also received a good assessment from experienced professionals, among them, Aleksej Naumov, and on November 21, he will open an exhibition of her paintings in the gallery “Museum LV” .

Here we also come to the book, because the catalog of works with a small booklet was planned for the exhibition, but step by step this booklet grew into a whole book, which contains both selections of Ainars Mielava’s lyrics and 16 of his pictures.

In general, this is the first book that collects his texts, until then there were none, and this is a very important part highlighted by the editor-in-chief of the publishing house “Dienas Krūmatas”, Dace Sparāne-Freimane. According to her, Mielavs is one of the few in Latvia who 100% corresponds to the meaning of the word “singer”, because his texts are truly poetry – with subtle symbols, their own uniqueness and a nice paradox , and he had a collection. of his long-deserved poems.

On Friday, October 18, at 18.00 at the Jānis Roze bookstore, Barona Street, Ainar Mielava’s autograph session will take place, where he will play music with his youngest daughter Tereza for the first time in public. But the “Museum LV” exhibition will open on November 21.

Light on Dementia

German children’s author Andreas Steinhöfel’s book “If my moon were your sun” is based on a sad topic that is relevant today, which is depression, which affects many elderly people and which is also very painful and difficult for their loved ones to experience. It must be said right away that the German author dealt with this subject in a light, somehow comfortable way, and this story may even help someone to find an answer to how to deal with his everything that was happening.

The book’s main character is nine-year-old Max. His grandfather has begun to suffer from this menacing Great Oblivion, as Max calls it, and he needs constant care, so he has been spending his days in a nursing home for a year. – now. Max loves him very much, he misses his grandfather very much, and one day the boy implements a daring plan – he kidnaps his grandfather to take him to a warm sunny meadow, which was once very important in his grandfather’s lifetime. Miss Schneider escapes from the nursing home with them, which makes the adventure particularly attractive, sometimes even funny. Of course, the refugees will soon be found, as they are not particularly agile, but in the meantime, a very important conversation between Max and Grandpa has taken place in the meadow, after which Max clearly understands to the depth of his heart that is not Big He can’t forget and nothing else to take away his close relationship with Grandpa, this closeness is and will last for life.

Nele Palmtaga’s illustrations for the book are not as important as the story – very sincere, sweet, but also with depth of thought, which through small nuances reminds us that life is like this, that darkness is next to the light, next to the light. joy is pain.

The presence of the third art – music – is also very important. The 12 pictures contain square codes that lead to soundtracks with music by Prokofiev and Bizet, which inspired the two authors when they created the book and is also very close to Max’s grandfather in the book, one of the things he passed on to Max his love. of music.

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