Petra

Fat is beauty!, her mother said; but Petra didn’t like the image in the mirror. She wanted to be tall, thin and elegant, and she decided to move heaven and earth in order to get it… till she met Fortunato…

Petra is a little elephant who rejects her fatness and dreams of being physically different. After using up all her expectations with frustrated intents of slimming through methods that didn’t adapt to her species, and full of illusion of finding a solution to what she considers a problem, Petra sets out on a trip which leads to a special meeting, amusing adventures and, above all, makes her aware of herself, to accept her natural condition and not to have a distorted perception of fatness.

In a certain way a metaphor of a developed society always seducing us with models that are far from the personal reality of each of us, but in which many people try to project themselves; the story ends up proposing an optimistic vision in the sense of learning that authenticity is the way to satisfaction, and that others accept us as we really are.

The Austrian illustrator demonstrates once again, this time also as author, her mastery of the psychology of boys and girls. The illustrations represent a perfect counterpoint to the text: Helga Bansch plays with details and secondary characters and manages that with each new look at the book we discover a new, richer and more suggestive reading.

Text and illustrations by Helga Bansch Translation from English by Eva Mejuto