That night, after finishing my mundane duties, I lay down to read Miller’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier. This wordless book, even after reading it a hundred times, still finds its delight and freshness. After a while, I became lost, and began to utter strange noises, echoing the events in the book. My wife, greatly surprised, rushed in, suspecting a monster. Upon seeing the book, she burst into laughter. I unfolded a page and asked her what she thought of it. She replied, “Carnal!” I unfolded another page and asked her again. She sighed and exclaimed, “Bloody!” I laughed and said, “This is indeed a children’s book, but a truly unique and exceptional one.”
Readers familiar with Andersen’s fairy tales will recognize the original structure of Miller’s The Tin Soldier. However, that fairytale love story becomes so unfamiliar in Miller’s writing. We see another side of the world, one that is tense to the point of madness, sometimes so filthy that it is unbearable to witness… Fortunately, it still returns to a fairytale-like happy ending, albeit a slightly absurd one. — Children read it as a fairy tale, while adults read it as the absurdity of reality!
This master illustrator, who has painted “Big Bear in the Forest”, “Goodbye, Little Rabbit” and “The Excavator Roars Year After Year — The Countryside Has Changed”, always said that he just used his brush to objectively record the world, that’s all, but his views are hidden in his perspective.
In this sense, I think York Miller is a master of critical realism in picture books.
【About the Painter】
Jörg Müller, born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1942, graduated from the School of Applied Arts in Biel, Zurich. He worked in advertising design before, with financial support from his father, embarking on picture book creation. Müller’s style is meticulously realistic, and he expertly employs cinematic camera techniques to progressively unfold the plot, enriching the visual imagination. His debut work, “Year After Year, the Excavators Roar, the Countryside Transforms,” was published in 1973 and received a tremendous response. His collaborative picture books with Jörg Steiner, such as “The Bear in the Forest” and “Goodbye, Little Rabbit,” have garnered international acclaim. In 1994, Müller received the International Hans Christian Andersen Award for Painter.
