The Three Robbers - Tomi Ungerer

Tomi Ungerer is fast becoming my favorite illustrator for the time being. Also on my travels to Brussels I found this lovely new edition of the 1962 classic The Three Robbers. The use of colours to create the whole mood of the book is fantastic. I love the way the robbers faces are more or less made up out of negative space having only eyes as features. This creates a real sense of mysetery about their identity. My favorite spread however has to be the beatiful green one with all the children dressed in red cloaks. What a fantastic contrast to the midnight blue of the rest of the book.

I didn't realize that this book was actually turned into a short animation in 1972 which stays completely true to each illustration in the book.

In 2007 a german animated feature film was also created which (ehem) doesn't stay very true to the book...