"Everything was as usual on Rainis Street, when you suddenly..." is how all eight chapters of Luīze Pastore's latest book "Circus on Rainis Street" begin. Here is a little insight of some titles of the chapters: "It appears on Rainis Street", "Pots of Rainis Street", "The Biggest Rabbit on Rainis Street", "Rainis Street's last hour" etc.
The book is a story for preschool and younger school-age children about friendship, making friends and the ability to find common ground between different generations, homes, species, breeds, nationalities, affiliations, and imperfections, each retaining its uniqueness and peculiarities. As author says, "it is a completely invented story based on what was seen, experienced and heard on Rainis Street in a small town in Latvia, talking to local residents".
Community building plays an important role in the story, it encourages to act as a unifier rather than to fight against something. By community, the reader can understand both a microcosm - a family, a close friend - and larger communities - a street, a neighborhood, a city.
In the idea of the book, the involvement of the reader, becoming the hero of the book, without initially realizing it, is important. It succeeds thanks to the masterful collaboration of Luīze Pastore, book illustrator Ieva Jurjāne and book designer Aleksejs Muraško. In addition, the last, eighth chapter of the book is like a visual story - a visual continuation of the text, a "silent story", created by Ieva Jurjāne. "In the eighth chapter, the daily life of the residents of Rainis Street continues, only without textual explanation. It is as real and true as it is paradoxical and exaggerated like the circus and the world of childhood in general. With the lightness inherent in the game, the tasks accompanying the illustrations are designed for attention training and the relaxed learning of basic preschool skills - for recognizing colors, numbers, letters, shapes," said the artist. The publishing house is convinced that "Circus on Rainis Street" is a necessary book in today's world, it is a book for a better society.
Luīze Pastore (1986) writes books for children and teenagers. Pastore's latest published book "The Laime Children" (liels un mazs publishing house) received the prestigious "New Horizons" award from the International Bologna Children's Book Market this spring. Received Latvian Literary Award of the Year (twice), Jānis Baltvilks Award in children's literature (twice), Pastariņš Award, Children's Jury recognition, as well as international recognition (White Ravens). In 2018, the British magazine The Guardian included the English translation of "The Tale of the Maskatchka" – "Dog Town" – in the selection of the best new children's books of the year, made by the British Book Publishers' Association in cooperation with the Booksellers' Association. Luīze Pastore is one of the authors of the School Bag and visits an average of 15 schools and libraries every month.
The book was published with the personal support of Jānis Zuzāns.