Everyone who has ever owned a pet knows the feelings of uncertainty and hope experienced when looking for a missing cat or dog. Anxiously putting up pamphlets and posters with pictures of their faces on the streets: “Have you seen this pet?”, “Missing”, “Lost dog”... Asking neighbours and searching for any clues to their whereabouts… The Ukrainian picturebook Розшукується Зіна / Zina is Being Searched for (2017, not yet translated) by author Yulia Laktionova and illustrator Romana Ruban encompasses these well-known feelings.

It centres around the search for the dog, Zina, who runs away the moment her owners open the gate. Her fellow dog friends take the matter into their own paws. As they start their investigation, they try to imagine where Zina might have gone off to. Struggles arise when realising that, in fact, they do not know Zina that much. They reflect on their regrets about not spending more time with her and work together to track her down. The story follows a home-away-home structure, and Zina eventually is found and reunited with her family. Initially, Zina is too ashamed to return home because of the owners’ distress, but they take her in without hesitation.

Now, focusing on the picturebook’s peritext, an outstanding integration of text, illustration, and format can be spotted within the concepts of “taking action” and “caring”. The big format of 28 x 137 cm allows the picturebook to adapt compositions that show a continuous contrast of elements’ sizes and an exaggeration of perspectives and actions. The handwritten text integrates into the illustration’s composition, allowing it to evoke harmony within the interplay of each other. This interplay emphasises how the picturebook is a complete object rather than individual elements separated from one another. At the end of the picturebook, there is a maze that adds an interactive playfulness to the picturebook, where you can help Zina find her way home.

The picturebook is a part of the “Maechka” series, which follows the adventures of a real-life colourful dog and cat community in Kyiv, who were all once homeless. All the characters are based on real pets and their families inthe editorial team, who have taken them in. This dynamic offers picturebooks that extend the stories of the pets’ characters. In an interview, illustrator Romana Ruban said: “There were some difficulties with the image of dogs, because these are real animals and it was necessary to catch their characteristic features.” (Nebo Booklab Publishing, 2018) Ruban’s character development offers us a set of anthropomorphic cats and dogs through her pencil and wooden crayon colouring technique. Perhaps to reflect a more familiar colouring style that children can exert, textures are given under sketchy traces. Also, their expressions have a humorous cartoonistic tone in the way they express themselves through their eyes and human-like body postures.  For instance, exaggeration is used again when portraying Zina at a pool in a float with a glass on one paw and a rubber duck on the other. On the editorial’s website “Nebo Booklab Publishing”, you can find some pictures and a brief biography of the many characters that appear in the book series. These are titled “book heroes'' and provide an extra layer of intertextuality to the picturebook and the different families.

Zina is Being Searched For offers a different reading experience with its large format, which can easily be displayed in a reading mediation activity. The openness and playfulness at every turn of the page adds more drama and suspense of finding Zina. This affordance of the picturebooks’ materiality can be a creative quality, which can be actively explored by mediators in collaboration with children. Besides these material aspects, the intertextuality of bringing real-life dogs into the story gives the chance to talk with children about their pets as essential family members. We highly recommend this picturebook because it takes a familiar storyline and turns it into a ludic experience for children to embrace the artistic and versatile side of literature.

This book review has been written to introduce readers and mediators to Ukrainian children’s literature, show solidarity with Ukraine, and celebrate the creativity of the creators. We especially want to thank our friend Nastya Lytvyn for providing us with a translation of the picturebook.

Book Details

Розшукується Зіна (Zina is Being Searched for)

Laktionova Julia (auth.) and  Romana Ruban (illus.)

Kyiv: Nebo Booklab Publishing, 2018

First published: 16 May 2023

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