The novella begins like a quiet Italian movie: bright, sunny, carefree. Fourteen-year-old Enrico is walking to see his grandfather Luigi, who lives in the valley with his flock of sheep. As always, Enrico takes his sketchbook. He captures on paper the things that he sees and experi­ences along the way. Ever since he was a small boy, he has wanted to become an artist, inspired by the stories about saints that are painted in the village church.

At a pleasantly relaxed Mediterranean pace, Kromhout and Van Haeringen skilfully bring the village and its residents to life. The atmosphere created by author and illustrator are just right, and they complement each other perfectly.

Van Haeringen’s depiction of the charming village perched on a slope within the hot and hilly landscape is beautiful. The way Kromhout evokes the senses in his written sketch is equally stunning. The fragrant olive trees, the aromas wafting from the kitchens, the elegance of Teresa, Enrico’s sweetheart, and the bickering about religion between widower Luigi and his new love, Marta: you feel like you are in Italy. But then disaster strikes.

Then comes part two, in which Krom­hout, without ever mentioning the earth­quake, slowly reveals what happened “that day in August”. His descriptions hit home – a street, for example, looks like a “tower of blocks” that has been kicked over by a child – but it is the pictures that speak volumes. In just a few lines, Enrico, using Van Haeringen’s hand, depicts the impact of the natural disaster, by “not only showing what it was really like, but also his own thoughts and feelings”. Beauty proves to be a consolation. Kromhout is right to refer to his novella as “an ode to the artist as historian”.