Narrators and storytellers. Don’t fear dragons – a series of readings for children

Episode 1: Andrea Gregušová: Gréta

“The distressed mother turtle disappeared with her children behind the door of the surgery. And while the doctor pumped the three little stomachs of the poor young turtles, grandma Greta sang another large section of the WAITING song. Turtles need a long time for everything, that’s just the way it is. Cleopatra the octopus was suffering from an itchy rash. Poor thing, it was all over her body. She scratched so fiercely that all her tentacles got twisted up in a ball. The doctor carefully disentangled them and prescribed her some cream for the itching. The conger eel complained: “I’ve got no energy, I feel weak. And all because ships were sailing over my bed all night…”

Published by Pluto press, 2019. ORDER BOOK

Original (in Slovak) published by Egreš press. ORDER BOOK

Narrated by: Nataša Mikulová Bednářová

Andrea Gregušová (born 1973) graduated in Slovak language and musical education from the Pedagogical Faculty of Comenius University in Bratislava. She works in Horné Orešany as a teacher of Slovak for foreigners. Andrea started writing for her own pleasure while at university. In 2007 she successfully offered her fairy tales for publication. She writes her stories down on paper so that the process of compiling them doesn’t take up too much space in her head.

Episode 2: Viola Fischerová: Jak zvířátka uzdravila smutný dům

“Dear Mr. Landlord, we have four puppies at home. They were born to Snowy, who was found by Mrs. Johanna on Christmas Eve, tied to a park bench. Many of us would like to take a puppy from her so that we’re not alone all the time, and to be sure that they’re not taken by someone else who might also abandon them. Dear Sir, please take our request into consideration. We feel ever more forlorn here in your house…”

Published by Meander press, 2011. ORDER BOOK

Narrated by: Ivana Uhlířová

Viola Fischerová (*1935, †2010) After completing her studies of Czech and Polish languages, Viola Fischerová worked on the literary editorial board of Czechoslovak Radio. In 1968 she left to live in exile in Basel, where she held a series of jobs (including as a private language teacher, a cloakroom attendant or a door-to-door kitchenware seller). She studied German and history at university in Basel, after which she relocated to Munich, where she taught German at a secondary school and worked as an editor at Radio Free Europe. She published a total of eight collections of poetry. After 1994 she lived in Prague. Meander press published four of her books for children: Co vyprávěla Dlouhá chvíle (2005), O Dorotce a psovi Ukšukovi (2007), Jak zvířátka uzdravila smutný dům (2011) and O kočce Mňauce, pejsce Bibině a maminčině lyžařské botě (2011).

Episode 3: Collective of authors (Gabriela Futová, Veronika Šikulová, Zuzana Štelbaská, Klára Kubíčková, Monika Kompaníková, Monika Kapráliková, Hana Krutílková, Kamila Musilová, Lucie Jarkovská): Drops on the Stone

Lucie Jarkovská: Olga Fierz (Švýcarka s českým srdcem, která pomáhala najít děti poztrácené v poválečné Evropě)
Zuzana Štelbaská: Erika Godlová (Nejvýznamnější slovenská překladatelka z romského jazyka)
Hana Krutílková: Františka Faustina Plamínková (Demokratka a humanistka, která vystoupila vůči Hitlerovi)
Veronika Šikulová: Izabela Textorisová (Pošťačka, ze které se stala významná botanička)
Kamila Musilová: Mobi Urbanová (Úspěšná neslyšící tanečnice)

Narrated by: Tereza Havlínková

Episode 4: Marek Madras: Na útěku

“He told us about the last days of his town. One early morning, without warning, monsters entered. He wasn’t able to describe them exactly, but one thing he remembered: They had no hearts. Where their hearts should have been, in their chest, there were only holes. And so they felt nothing when they destroyed the settlement.”

Published by Labyrint press, 2017. ORDER BOOK

Narrated by: Jakub Gottwald

Episode 5: Jiří Stránský: O chamtivém králi

“A few days ago, Rudolf went out to the toilet in the middle of the night and saw how his father, King Henry – in only his dressing gown – was descending the stairs to somewhere. Even though Rudolf desperately needed the toilet (and this almost turned out badly), he couldn’t resist spying, and so silently as a ghost he went down to the bottom after his father. And he could not believe his eyes. Henry was playing with precious stones of all possible colours, just like Dynda played with his building blocks. Rudolf didn’t see any more, because he had to run to the toilet, but the next morning he told Karolina. And of course, she didn’t believe him. “Hogwash,” she said (even if it’s forbidden for princesses to talk like that).
But the very next day, Kuba, the son of a miner, said that their father, the king, was rumoured to be greedy.”

Published by Meander press in the Modrý slon edition, 2011. The book is illustrated by Matěj Forman and Josefína Formanová. ORDER BOOK

Narrated by: Matěj Samec

Episode 6: Magdaléna Platzová: Já, Safun

“When the war started, Mary and I were ten years old. Our football club continued to play on for a while, but then they shut it down. It started to become dangerous for girls. The boys who previously just used to shout at us not to run and to wear a long skirt and a veil are now very powerful. Their army in the north is conquering one city after another, and it’s quite possible that they’ll even reach us in Latakia. They’ll defeat Bashar’s army, kill Bashar and rule the country themselves. I don’t know if it will be worse or better than under Bashar, but one thing I know for sure. For girls like me, Shams and Mary, it’ll be very bad. They’ll forbid us to play football and go to school! Where they’re in power, thirteen year old girls like me are already getting married and having children.”

Short story published by Baobab press in the book Jinde, 2016. ORDER BOOK

Narrated by: Halka Třešňáková

Episode 7: Petr Koťátko: Wormsův svět

“The whole kingdom lived off Worms’ drops, the drops flowed through the veins and capillaries of the animals, plants and stones of Worms’ world, and if the cycle ran dry then this so-called nature would begin to fall apart piece by piece, just as the wings and props disappear from the stage once the performance has finished. Without the drops the “new” nature would collapse into the old nature, as if a great tower crumbled, and instead of looming at the top of a cliff returned to the ground all the stone it had borrowed. “That’s why not one drop must remain,” said Jakub, adding that the garden was the heart of Worms’ kingdom, or something in that spirit. It truly seemed that a happy accident had brought our friends to the only right place.”

Published by Druhé město press, 2009. ORDER BOOK

Narrated by: Hynek Chmelař

Petr Koťátko (born 1955) studied at the Faculty of Arts at Masaryk University in Brno, and subsequently taught at the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education and Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague and the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Fribourg, and since 1990 he has been an academic researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Sciences. His main subject of interest is the philosophy of language, the theory of fiction, history of philosophy and literary interpretation (in particular Beckett, Borges and Kafka). He has published the collection of short stories and poems Úvod do zoologie (Petrov), the novella Casanova (Druhé město), the children’s books Wormsův svět (Druhé město) and Anička, mluvící potok a další chovanci ústavu paní Majerové (Meander), and the play Skalka (Větrné mlýny). His literary books are created as a joint work together with his daughter, the artist Eva Koťátková.

Episode 8: David Böhm: A jako Antarktida

“The whole kingdom lived off Worms’ drops, the drops flowed through the veins and capillaries of the animals, plants and stones of Worms’ world, and if the cycle ran dry then this so-called nature would begin to fall apart piece by piece, just as the wings and props disappear from the stage once the performance has finished. Without the drops the “new” nature would collapse into the old nature, as if a great tower crumbled, and instead of looming at the top of a cliff returned to the ground all the stone it had borrowed. “That’s why not one drop must remain,” said Jakub, adding that the garden was the heart of Worms’ kingdom, or something in that spirit. It truly seemed that a happy accident had brought our friends to the only right place.”

Published by Labyrint press in 2019. ORDER BOOK

Narrated by: Anita Krausová and Oliver Bohm