Jellona

Jellona, the Great -cover

Anne Vasko:
Jellona Suuri (Jellona, the Great) 2010
Jellona Toinen (Jellona, the Second) 2012


Two great books about a soft toy Jellona, who has issues. The illustrations are made of  textile collages. In Jellona the Great, Jellona fears of not being enough and in Jellona, the Second, he fears that he will be left out. Issues that everyone deals with some time.

Jellona Suuri
Jellona is a small lion made of fabric. Every one thinks he looks like a home made cat, but Boy thinks Jellona is the king of lions.

Jellona does not like being left out.

But Boy grows up and Jellona hates games, which do not include him. He wonders, if he is to small to take part in those games. He wants to grow bigger. He starts to eat more, but what if he does not grow enough? He decides to grow a bigger mane. Maybe his color is too childish? Maybe he should be yellow or golden brown.

Girl finds him and wants to keep him. Jellona sees a princess and half a kingdom, after all he is related to lions

Jellona, the Second - cover

Jellona Toinen
Jellona has two friends, Hirvonen and Pii.They play together, but sometimes the blanket is too small and they start fighting. Then everything is said in CAPITAL LETTERS and words become stupid, dorky.

When there are no words left, start the pillowfight and wrestling and someone gets hurt. Jellona's tail gets a hit. What if it cannot be fixed? Nobody will play with him any more and some other lion comes along. But Jellona is the cutest soft toy lion ever.

Jellona, Hirvonen and Pii fight over a blanket

Jellona starts looking for his friends and wants to find the right words. Words do not mend the tail, but they help. Hirvonen and Pii help fix the tail