Learning to Fly by Sebastian Meschenmoser

Experiencing Sebastian Meschenmoser's picture books is something similar to listening to Glenn Gould play Bach. There is a beginning and an end, a plot and an idea, but all the spaces in between are filled with a profound, powerful magic that is both familiar and absolutely enlightening.

I haven't been able to learn too much about Meschenmoser except that in addition to writing and illustrating children's books he is a professional painter and lives in Germany. I also learned that there are a bunch of books he wrote in addition to the ones I managed to get my hands on that are only available in Europe, so if you are there, feel free to buy them and send them to me.


Learning to Fly is the the first book of his I discovered. The story is about a penguin who once knew how to fly but then stopped being able to because he was told that penguins don't fly. The said penguin meets up with the narrator of the story, and the two spend most of the book figuring out how to help the penguin fly again.

As it is said in the book there are some good ideas and some bad ones, and while I can not tell you what happens in the end, I can say that you won't be disappointed even if you only read one page and take a look at the pictures.

Meschenmoser does his illustrations in graphite pencil with a bit of color here and there. What I find totally amazing is how much meaning, love, and information is conveyed through the pictures with scratchy lines and squiggles that run across the pages like a master jazz improvisation that continues to sound in the mind well after the book is closed and put away. This artist has a line quality to be noted quite seriously. I think that the fact that he makes such very serious art for children is a sign of deep respect for his audience and a belief that children can more than handle something other than total dumbed down stupidity of most children's books published in the States.

Along with the serious art, there is a serious plot line. I am a big fan of interaction that occurs when absolute absurdity happens with a straight face, and a lingering moment of confusion in which things absurd make total sense. The whole absurd story of Leaning to Fly is delivered with a totally straight face and leaves the reader to smile quietly to himself as he gets to the end.