Mirko Gabler

Mr. Skola and the children in his Tourist Club liked to visit interesting sites, but when they went to Kost Castle, in Bohemia, they got more than they bargained for. Eva and Lenka were left behind at the end of the day, and Mr. Skola and the other pupils discovered, upon their return to the castle to retrieve them, that the ghost of the castle's former owner, Count Zuba the Great, was insisting that they stay for his birthday party. So it was that they had an entertaining and magical evening, complete with spells that turned them into various animals, lots of chocolate cake with sprinkle, and a ride home in an enchanted flying carriage...

Brakus, Krakus... or The Incredible Adventure of Mr. Skola's Tourist Club is the third picture-book I have read from Czech-American author/illustrator Mirko Gabler, following upon his The Alphabet Soup and Tall, Wide, and Sharp-Eye: A Czech Folktale, and I think I enjoyed it the most, of the three. The story is engaging, and has a number of particularly amusing moments - my favorite was probably the conclusion, in which the nosy principal gets more than she bargained for, reading the Tourist Club's journal! - while the accompanying artwork is fun, building nicely upon and accentuating the humor. Gabler does not appear to have published anything else, beyond these three books, and Margery Cuyler's Invisible in the Third Grade, which he illustrated. That seems a shame. Recommended to picture-book readers who enjoy humorous stories with ghosts and plenty of magic.… (meer)

Falling instantly in love with the picture of a princess with sparkling eyes and a friendly smile, a prince sets out to rescue her from the wicked wizard who had imprisoned her in this Czech folktale. Meeting three adventurous friends along the way - Tall, Wide and Sharp Eyes - each of whom had a special talent, he eventually comes to the wizard's castle and discovers that the princess can be his, if and only if he manages to stay up for three nights and guard her. Despite their best efforts, each night the prince and his companions fall asleep, and Tall, Wide and Sharp-Eyes must use their special talents to find her again, before the wizard returns...

Expatriate Czech-American author and artist Mirko Gabler, whose other picture-books include The Alphabet Soup and Brakus, Krakus... or the Incredible Adventure of Mr. Skola's Tourist Club, turns in Tall, Wide, and Sharp-Eye: A Czech Folktale to the traditional lore of his ancestral homeland. The story here is engaging, and reminded me quite a bit of the Brothers Grimm tale of The Six Servants and its variants from other cultures. The artwork is colorful and cute, in a cartoon-like way, and accentuates the humor of the story. Recommended to young folklore enthusiasts, and to anyone looking specifically for traditional Czech stories.… (meer)

When Gurgle and Blog are sent to school by their mother, the twin witches take to their education with enthusiasm, learning their alphabet in one day. Their assignment when they go home is to make alphabet soup, and they approach this with enthusiasm too, adding everything from ants to bagworm, dandruff to earwigs. When they get to Z they hit a snag, before realizing that they can add Zack, the schoolmate who followed them home and has been spying on them. Will they manage to capture him, or will he escape before becoming the last ingredient in their concoction...?

Originally published in hardcover as The Alphabet Soup, and then in paperback as Bat Brain Stew, this witchy picture-book was expatriate Czech author/illustrator Mirko Gabler's first published title. It pairs an imaginatively magical tale about two little witch children going to school and making a disturbingly disgusting brew with a classic alphabet story structure. The accompanying illustrations are colorful and accentuate both the grotesquerie and the sense of humor in the text. As someone who has an interest in witchy picture-books - they're a pet project of mine - I found this engaging, but also on the gross side of funny, for my taste, and fairly text-heavy, for a picture-book. I'd recommend it to older picture-book readers - six and seven years old, perhaps - who enjoy humorous witchy fare.… (meer)