9. Marta Voleská.
Artus Scheiner, illustrator.
Kulihrásek v hlubinách morskych [Kulihrásek
in the Depths of the Sea].
Prague: Gustav Volesky, 1932.
The little boy swimming in the middle of a school of fish is Kulihrásek,
the mischievous hero of over a dozen Czech picture books. If he looks
nervous, it's probably because he’s noticed that next to him
a very large fish is gulping down a smaller one.
Although
Kulihrásek is mostly concealed by fish,
you can make out his webbed gloves and flippers.
This special equipment was a gift from underwater friends, creatures
look like monkeys with frog’s feet, who saved him from drowning.
During his adventures, Kulihrásek also steers clear of a huge jelly
fish, receives a shock from an electric eel, and swims through dark,
deep waters illuminated
by the bioluminescent lures of strange fish. While this book makes
no
pretense of offering a scientific introduction to marine biology, it
allows readers to see the ocean’s wonders without the encumbrance
of diving gear.
This series of books was illustrated by Artus Scheiner (1863-1938),
a prolific Bohemian artist, whose work was widely published in Czechoslovakia
and Austria. Except for his illustrations for Božena Nemcová's The
Disobedient Kids and other Czecho-Slovak Fairy Tales (1921), Scheiner's
work is not well known in the English-speaking world.