Zoran Krušvar

So, this post will be dedicated to demonic purpose of propaganda.

Since it looks like there are some people reading this blog, I will abuse it to shamelessly advertise my friend’s first book. Readers of this blog are probably aware of her existence, because she is our very NINIANE (weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!) whose comments you can read below some of mine previous posts. And here is a video to remind you of her great acting skills: LINK

The book is called “Pegazari“, and Niniane is signed as Ivana D. Horvatinčić. To those who may want to know, Niniane / Ivana grew up with the same first and last name as former Croatian Miss Universe contestant and one of our useless celebrities.

So, OUR Ivana couldn’t wait to get married, so she could change her last name and get rid of all the stalkers and misinformed paparazzi. But, just to be sure, just in case that changing her name won’t be enough, she found an extra good way to distinguish herself from beauty queens, and hide from the public.

She wrote a book.

1. Our scientists have yet to prove that beauty contestants can actually read anything but brand names (the rumors exist that LHC will be used to determine this, after they finish fooling around with bozon). Anyway, reading is nerdish, uncool and bad for your posture, so writing a book is out of the question (though, having someone else to ghost-write the book and then signing it is acceptable).
2. If something can drive the public attention AWAY from one self, it is a grown up, non-celebrity person writing a non-scandalous book.

So, congratulations Niniane, you are finally safe. Now let’s say something about the book.

I don’t know who is reading this blog right now, but those of you who are not from Croatia probably won’t be reading this book anytime soon. Still, I will suggest my Polish contacts to consider translating this book (damn, this has reminded me… Aga, have I sent you the book you’ve asked me?? I send some books by post all the time, so I tend to lose track) so maybe it gets translated. You never know.

The book is a children’s fantasy novel. The name is “Pegazari“, I guess that could be translated to English as “The Pegasars” (btw. looks like there is an airplane called “Pegasair”).

What the hell are “The Pegasars”? Well, obviously, they are the people who ride pegasi, winged horses. And, as you might expect, they live in a parallel fantasy world. BUT, they haven’t always lived there! They were taken from OUR world to fulfill their destinies in the fantasy world, and than be returned. So, we (kind of) have two separate plots; one in our world and one in the fantasy world (I say “kind of”, because the plot in our world is minimized and the character is mostly being passive, as an opposite to herself in fantasy world). The general idea reminds me of Ende’s “Neverending Story”, where the main character is a boy, Bastian, bullied by his peers, who then transcends in a fantasy world that needs to be saved by him.

LINK

Similarly, the main character in “Pegazari” is a girl, Kristina, bullied by her peers, who transcends in a fantasy world that needs to be saved by her. Well, everything else is different. Kristina’s fantasy alter ego will have to take a journey through her own personality, become a villain, a doubtful hero and a sad victim, before she finally sets the things straight. Then she’ll be able to take control over her life in “the real world”, but rather changing herself than having revenge over her molesters. The novel is filled with action, air duels, danger, magic, and occasional unexpectedly violent scenes. I think it will be well accepted by readers in their younger teens. Also, I think Niniane is doing good job writing for this specific audience (you can tell that her day job is being a psychologist in an elementary school) and I think she should keep writing for children.

This book is also telling us a lot about the author (hey, I’m a psychologist too – what did you expect?)

Through the novel we discover things from our surroundings that helped in forming of the plot and the fantasy world; the war with all the brutality on both sides, the sides being marked as “white” and “blue” – just like two largest and most violent football hooligan groups in Croatia, a schoolgirl moving to a scary, new social surrounding… We also get to see the way the author tries to understand the villains in the novel, showing us their side of the story.

So, I don’t want to spoil any further. If you ever come across this book, I suggest you to read it. Just because the book is for kids, it doesn’t mean that older people can’t read it.

Plus, it’s an excellent gift for Christmas, New Year, Solstice, Hanukkah, or whatever you are celebrating this time of the year.