Kalevala

One of the big surprises in Helsinki's big Akateeminen Kirjakauppa bookshop was this book, as seen on the photo I took with my phone.

It's re-telling of Finnish national tale for children, reprint of the book from 1966, published by WSOY. The things that really made my jaw to drop were the illustrations by Aleksander Lindeberg. THEY ARE JUST TOO GOOD!!! It's just amazing. Real vintage illustrations from sixties! Shapes! Textures! No Photoshop! :-)

The only question for me was - as some of the illustrations are in black and white, is it the way the originals were drawn? Or were they also in color? Publisher says on it's page:

"Uusi laitos tehdään Lindebergin alkuperäiskuvista, joten se hehkuu ensipainostakin kirkkaampana." - "New printing is made from the Lindeberg's original images, so it glows even brighter than the original print run." So?...

I really hope to add this book to my collection one day. And why not to look around for another book with his illustrations, this one is about Russian fairy tales...