Poem About Big BIGMOUSE by Ludmila Ulanova

I’m spotlighting children’s poetry films and videos this week, a diverse collection of works by children as well as film-poems made by adults for children. This is an outstanding example of the latter. About BIGMOUSE (Про Мыху), animated by Constantin Arephyeff (or Arefiev, in a more standard Romanization) won the award of the children’s jury at the 5th ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in 2010. This is the English version narrated by Stephen Coates, who collaborated with the author and a couple of other people on the translation. There’s also a Russian version.

As in many Eastern European poetry animations, the text is used as a jumping-off point for a different, more elaborate story-line. However, this also feels very familiar in the context of children’s literature, where the artwork in illustrated books often does much more than just illustrate.

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