Kapka Kaneva - The Iron Man

This book by Ted Hughes, published in 1968, is still relevant today. It touches on issues of ecology, global politics, and most of all, maintaining peace. The Iron Man emerges from the sea in pieces and rebuilds himself with his own strength. People see him as a threat, as he steals and eats any iron he comes across, even swallowing whole machines. After setting traps for him, with the help of a child, they convince him to go live at the scrap metal dump. But the real enemy comes from the sky – an enormous dragon, as big as Australia. The Iron Man fights him with cunning, making him warm himself on the sun. The dragon becomes peaceful – it begins to circle the Earth, singing songs, and peace is established among humankind. Kapka Kaneva’s illustrations adeptly reflect this utopian fantasy. The technique she uses is original and effective. She cuts the individual elements of the illustration out of paper, composes them in a kind of action scene, then directs the light and takes photographs. The result is a voluminous, multi-layered illustration in which the resulting three-dimensional world comes back to life in its two-dimensional form on the pages of the book. In addition to the qualities of the illustrations, it is important that the children are introduced to a new technique for pictures with which they can experiment.