Art by Petit Collage

Slon  :  Elephant

Zmija  :  Snake

Cačak  :  Cat

Pas  :  Dog

Lav  :  Lion

Majmun  :  Monkey

Ovca  :  Sheep

Konj  :  Horse

Leptir  :  Butterfly

Sova : Owl

Sma :  Deer

Kurjak : Wolf

Jelen : Stag

Know them all? Play this fun game here!

Have you checked out our Sma, Kurjak, Sova, and Jelen clothes this season? :

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One of our readers and commenters recently told us about one of her favorite children’s book authors from Croatia – Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić. Although she passed away 1938 she is still considered to be one of Croatia’s most famous and well-loved writers for children. Born into a family of politicians and poets, Ivana homeschooled all six of her children, and became famous in 1913 for her book The Brave Adventures of Laptich. Croatian Tales of Long Ago was published in 1916 with huge success, which prompted Ivana’s nickname – “The Croatian Andersen” (in reference to Hans Christian Andersen). The stories are original, but reference characters and themes from traditional Slavic mythology.

In 2002 and 2003 an animation artist named Helena Bulaja decided to adapt some of the Croatian Tales of Long Ago into a web animation project.  In her words: “The digital revolution, the Internet, and modern communications are on one side, and the world of fairytales on the other…the concept of the interactive book is so open, and unlike film, theatre, or illustration, it can take almost any form, it can be a film, an illustration, a game…”  The website is a little dated, but the animation is stunning, such as in Yagor below:

Yagor from Helena Bulaja on Vimeo.

This is part of an ongoing blog series exploring children’s literature and folk tales from the regions of Hungary, Romania, and Croatia. Do you have any recommendations? If so please feel free to leave a comment below.

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Video of owner Julie making the map:

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The Main Branch downtown is massive, with 6 stories of books, and an amazing Children’s Section. To my surprise I found piles and piles of folk tales from these regions, and thanks to a kind librarian, was able to look at some books from the Historical Archives, which are not loaned out to the public. The one which resonated the most for me in both illustration and content was Kati and Kormos, written by Anico Surany and illustrated by Leonard Everett Fisher:

Kati Viszla is a prize-winning hunting dog who lived in a grand kennel on a huge estate in Hungary. She was happy, but lonely, as her owner Count Toldy was away often, and she spent most of her days inside a cage, and bored.

Luckily one day she met Kormos Puli, a shaggy little sheepdog, and his owner Old Imne:

She learns to love a life of herding and not hunting, and abandons her life of lonely luxury for a life with good company.

The illustrations are gorgeous in person. The tale is simple but the writing is wonderfully descriptive, and similar to Selma the Sheep, I find it conveys wisdom within its pages. The author Anico Surray is born of Hungarian ancestry, and owns a Viszla dog similar to Kati. Leonard Everett Fisher has an MFA from Yale, and has illustrated over 100 kids books, including 11 of his own.

Published by Holiday House Press in 1966, copies of this book are not very easy to find, but Amazon has a few for sale here.

This is part of an ongoing blog series exploring children’s literature and folk tales from the regions of Hungary, Romania, and Croatia. Do you have any recommendations? If so please feel free to leave a comment below.

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Every week as part of Tote Tuesday, we ask a different question on Facebook. You can win our Little Citizens tote.

Just wanted to share some of our Fans’ Childhood travel stories and one of my own.

From Sarah (this week’s winner): Driving to Canada to see Niagra Falls and getting watermelon flavored French gum stuck in my hair when we were laying down in the back of our station wagon!

From Priscilla: My parents used to take my sister and I to Tijuana every summer. We stayed at the same hotel every year, ate at our favorite restaurants and visited neighborhing cities like Ensenada, Rosarito and Tecate. We looked forward to our summers.

From Winnie: My family didn’t go on vacations when we were young. Our first family vacation was when I was 18 years old, a trip back to China, Macau and Hong Kong to visit family. My grandmother passed away and the family was there to take care of service arrangements. Needless to say, we didn’t get to do too many things fun. But it was great to meet all the aunts, uncles and cousins I’ve never met before. It was fun getting to know them.

From Julie: When I was 11 and my brother was 8, my parents took us to Europe. In s stop in Germany a man introduced himself to us and bought us pastries in the Kondotetei. Turns out he was the Burgermeister. This thrilled us because we knew this term from the Christmas special with the Burgermeister Meisterbuger!

From Luciana: I used to live in Brazil… so on summer vacation, we would drive from Sao Paulo to Belo Horizonte and stop on little farms for snacks and rest along the way…. I remember playing in this little farm/restaurant’s playground and near the cows…. I remember the food was great and fresh milk… great memories.

From Kaarin: Almost 15 years ago, my Great Grandmother, Grandmother, and Mother took me on a tour of the world and we stopped by South Afrika for two months. While we were on safari one day a young Lioness jumped on our jeep and stared us down for what seemed like hours (probably no more than a minute!) , and my Great Grandmother finally stood up and told her to shoo away with her cane . . . I’ll never forget it 4 generations of women traveling around the world!

From LisaC (that’s me): I remember going to Miami Beach for the first time from Connecticut to visit my aunt, cousins and Grandpa Abe. My brother kept saying its not Miami it’s your ami. We got to swim in more than one pool and the ocean, hang out with our older cousins and go for brunch at The Fountainebleau Hotel. Pretty cool all around.

Discover more memories on our Facebook page. What are some of your favorite childhood travel stories?

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(artwork by Binth)

1   Egy

2   Kettö (két before a noun)

3   Három

4   Négy

5   Öt

6   Hat

7   Hét

8   Nyolc

9   Kilenc

10   Tíz

Want to double-check your memorization? Take this little quiz here!

Interested in the phonetics of the Hungarian alphabet? Check out this handy chart here.

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Check out some other cool manhole imagery from Budapest.

We found these on a blog called Manhole Miscellany.

Here at Tea, we’ve been wondering whether the image on the pullover is really a dragon. Or could it be an eagle?

To us, no matter what you call it, the Nanaos Dragon Pullover is one sweatshirt boys will love to wear back to school and all throughout the fall. It’s sure to be warm, comfortable conversation-starter.

What do you think? dragon or eagle?

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See all Little Drifter submissions here.
See full set of directions on BOOOOOOOM!

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Quynh Vu is July’s winner:

Our daughters Sammie and Taylor at Noguchi Gardens in Costa Mesa. They were having a fun time exploring the water fountain and climbing the rocks and out of the blue decided to show a bit of sibling affection. We love Tea clothing because of it’s unique & beautiful design and the girls love comfortable dresses that allow them to explore their world.

Take a look at July’s honorable mentions below and read more about them on Facebook.

Thanks to everyone who participated. Please continue sharing your photos and experiences with us on Facebook! August’s contest will be posted here soon.

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Tošo Dabac was a Croatian photographer, whose work largely focused on the streets of Zagreb between 1920 and his death in 1970. A contemporary of other famous European photographers of the time such as Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson, his photographs have been exhibited widely throughout the world.

Dabac’s work portrays the moments of daily life on the streets of Zagreb – people having conversations, commuting to work, walking their dogs, or shoveling snow. Photographing the same locations for decades, his work covers an array of human experiences within one city.

You can find more of his work  here. Or, if you’re visiting Zagreb, stop by the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art to visit his archives in person.

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