Alte Zachen - Hatje Cantz

A hardcover book titled Alte Zachen, with a bright orange spine, resting on a white surface. The cover features a sketched illustration of a boy and an older woman walking through a gray, stylized cityscape. The boy pulls a rolling shopping basket.

An open book laid flat reveals illustrated endpapers with a vibrant orange background. A repeating pattern of black-and-white line drawings covers the pages, featuring whimsical illustrations of people, vintage cars, clocks, scissors, eyeglasses, and symbols of Judaica, including a Star of David with the word Jude.

An open graphic novel with watercolor and ink illustrations. The left page shows dozens of arms with numbers tattooed on them, reaching towards the center. The right page is a comic strip with panels depicting characters, a map of central Europe, and dialogue in German.

An open book showing a two-page comic spread illustrated in black and white ink wash. The left page is a large panel of a baker with glasses standing behind a pastry counter in a shop with a checkered floor. The right page is a grid of smaller panels detailing a conversation in German between two people.

An open book on a white surface shows a full-spread watercolor illustration of a crowded dance floor. The scene is filled with a diverse group of people of various ages and ethnicities, all joyfully dancing together in couples and small groups.

The back cover of a book with a vibrant orange spine, set against a plain white background. The cover features several paragraphs of German text in a handwritten font above a watercolor illustration of a city skyline in muted grey and blue tones. A barcode and publisher information are at the bottom.

A watercolor and ink illustration of a bustling city street lined with grey brick apartment buildings. A diverse crowd of people walks along the sidewalk in front of storefronts for a deli, sushi restaurant, and laundromat. In the foreground, a boy and an older woman are talking, with their dialogue written in German inside speech bubbles.

A two-page comic strip in a grayscale watercolor style with German text. An older person in a headscarf and a younger person with a shopping cart walk down a city street. They have a tense confrontation with a tattooed man using a vape, which unfolds over several panels. The encounter ends with the older person walking away.

Alte Zachen

Benni und seine jüdische Großmutter gehen einkaufen

€ 22.00

VAT included. Shipping costs will be calculated at checkout

Illustrated by: Benjamin Phillips

March 2023, 72 Pages

Hardcover

199mm x 248mm

ISBN: 978-3-7757-5391-3

HATJE CANTZ VERLAG
Mommsenstr. 27
10629 Berlin
Germany
E-Mail: contact@hatjecantz.de

According to Article 9(7) of the GPSR Regulation, no additional security information is required for books without supplements or special functions.

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Illustrated with charming wit, this graphic novel builds a bridge from generation to generation, between today and the past. We follow eleven-year-old Benni and his grandmother, Bubbe Rosa, through Brooklyn and Manhattan as they do the shopping for Friday's pre-Shabbat dinner.
This very sensitive and seemingly simple story tells of Jewish identity in a vibrant, big city; at the same time, it is about change, letting go, and finding each other. Bubbe Rosa's relationship to the city is complex—nothing is as she remembers it, and she looks grimly at the world around her. Through little Benni's open, kindly gaze, the city and his grandmother seem very different. As they walk, snippets of Bubbe's memories of her childhood in Germany and her arrival in nineteen-fifties' Brooklyn come to light. Piece by piece, a picture of Bubbe's life emerges from the scraps of memory, explaining why she is so grumpy. The story culminates in a reunion with her first love, Gershon the baker. On their way home to dinner, Bubbe Rosa and her grandson Benni find a new and wonderful approach to each other's lives and the opportunity to talk about them.