Bergrún Íris Sævarsdóttir

Vinur minn, vindurinn (“My friend the wind”, not translated into English) is about the Icelanders’ favourite subject: the weather. The book is intended for very young children. The book is not wordy. With only a few words or phrases on each spread of pages, it is reminiscent of the show-and-tell books that adults and children read together. Adult readers have a good opportunity to heighten their children’s awareness of the ever-changing weather and to teach them words associated with different types of wind or rain.

The background of the book’s pictures portray the different atmospheres that go along with different kinds of weather, whether fine or inclement. The colours are gentle pastels, and the drawings in the foreground are representational even if the colour scheme is not. In the pictures you can see the tree leaves flutter or fly in the wind, depending on whether there’s a gale, a breeze, or calm. The grass, too, bends from side to side while the trees, like people, sway in the wind. Readers are welcomed into the story and asked to pay attention to how the weather behaves and to act like the weather – to blow like the wind, roar like a storm, or whisper like a breeze. Special attention is accorded to the cat – the book’s only “person” – who, as the child’s representative in the book, is soft and plump. It appears on almost every spread, and we can tell by its expression how the wind is blowing.

Born in 1985, Bergrún Íris Sævarsdóttir has a BA in art history from the University of Iceland and a diploma in drawing from Reykjavik School of Art. She has illustrated several children’s books by other authors as well as computer games. Vinur minn, vindurinn is the first children’s book of her own.