Beautiful Soviet Children's Books Make Me Wish I Was Born Behind the Iron Curtain [Ar

[retroremakes]

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/12/robotmom.jpgI mean, not really (http://gizmodo.com/5400857/the-true-heartbreaking-faces-of-the-nuclear-era), but still! These wonderfully idiosyncratic illustrations (http://ajourneyroundmyskull.blogspot.com/2009/12/mummy-was-robot-daddy-was-small-non.html), from 1989's Hello, I'm Robot! by Stanislav Zigunenko, render our robot future in a way that conveys big ideas to children, and pure poetry to the rest of us.

Perhaps what makes these illustrations work is that they trust their young audience with difficult questions: Are our brains simply computers? Are our bodies mere machines? What is work, without agency? What is pleasure, without feeling? These are not things I was thinking about in 1989.

Or, you know, it could be the fact that they're utterly stunning, and look like something you'd find in an art gallery, not a rotting children's book. More at [AJourneyAroundMySkull (http://ajourneyroundmyskull.blogspot.com/2009/12/mummy-was-robot-daddy-was-small-non.html) via BoingBoing (http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/21/soviet-kids-book-rob.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+boingboing/iBag+(Boing+Boing))]


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