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Bette Westera en Sylvia Weve

Uit elkaar

Poetry collection about love – that has ended in separation

A boy who sees his dad kissing his teacher. A girl who finally gets the big (half-)brother she’s wanted for so long. Stepmothers who actually turn out to be okay. This poetry collection by Bette Westera and Sylvia Weve is about love, but about love that has failed, run aground or ended in separation. In these rhythmic verses, no subject remains undiscussed.

Sadness, infatuation, cheating, new family structures — Westera writes with a light touch and often with humour, as in the poem about the goldfish dividing their time between him and her after a break-up. But we also find ourselves confronted with painful situations, for example, when a child speaks up who suddenly has to deal with two homes and extra parents. Would it have turned out differently if he had been nicer? If he had never stood on the chairs with his dirty shoes? That particular poem is called ‘Nonsense’, and Weve has blasted a huge pink cross through it — one of the two fluorescent colours that have been added to the printed palette. The graphic work by Bockting Design also stands out in other respects. The paper is folded to make each page a kind of loop, so the words and pictures can flow from spread to spread. This gives Weve ample opportunity to let loose with her expressive, flamboyant illustrations. Like the mother’s hand reaching out for her daughter on the next spread in a poem about a girl who can’t believe her parents were ever a couple. ‘They have nothing, absolutely nothing, / in common / except for / me.’

The publishing house Gottmer has taken a daring approach by publishing poetry with such a strong focus on the design element. And it works — the poetry collections of Westera and Weve have the ‘wow factor’ and have found their way to a wide audience. Sometimes the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts.

Westera’s verses, which as always read so smoothly, and Weve’s elegant, relaxed signature style complement each other beautifully.

NRC Handelsblad

With her poems, Bette Westera makes you both laugh and cry.

Trouw

Vertalingen

Bette Westera

Bette Westera (b. 1958) is a versatile writer who creates modern fairytales, poems, picture books and realistic stories for children up to the age of around ten. After a short period as a primary-school teacher, she studied psychology. Bette now teaches people how to write stories for picture…

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Details

Uit elkaar (2019). Kinder- en jeugdboeken, 136 pagina's.

Illustraties

Sylvia Weve

Age: 6+

Thema's: scheiding

Fragmentvertaling

English (PDF document)

Uitgeverij

Gottmer

Zijlweg 308
2015 CN Haarlem
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 23 541 11 90
Fax: +31 23 527 44 04

E-mail:
[email protected]
Website:
http://www.gottmer.nl

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