To Wake the Princess
The book «To Wake the Princess» (Rus: Разбудить принцессу) by Kseniya Shtalenkova is an adventure fairy-tale in nine scenes written in the format of a play.
The book aims at everyone, who loves magical stories and theatre. So one can read this fairy-tale, and play it as well. Regardless of age.
A full-colour softcover with flaps represents the scenery of the fairy-tale world.
The calligraphic logo with the book’s title features a capital «Р» designed a sword to symbolize the spirit of knighthood, and a stroke in «И» designed as a magical spindle with a thread.
The book opens with two illustrated spreads: portraits of the characters designed as a family tree, as well as a map of the kingdoms foreshadowing the future adventures of the protagonists.
Each scene contains two thematic illustrations: a miniature with key characters or their attributes, and a strip with the central event of the scene. The beginning and end of the text in each scene are marked with special emblems. Illustrations use screen printing technique with gouache and foam rubber, further rendered with pencils.
The layout makes the reading of the play as dynamic as possible. Wide margins and spaces separating the names of the characters, lines, and remarks permit leaving director’s notes for the scenes while working on both professional and amateur productions, as well as at home theatres. Headers mark scene and page numbers to help readers easily find the page they need.
The book was published by «R. M. Tsymberau Publisher» (Rus: Издатель Цимберов Р. М.) in December 2024 in Minsk, Belarus, in Russian and Belarusian.
While getting prepared for publication, the play «To Wake the Princess» was long-listed at the «The Time for Drama, 2024, Summer» Contest for Contemporary Drama (Rus: Время драмы, 2024, лето) in the nomination «Play for Children» (Rus: Пьеса для детей). In January 2025, the play was also long-listed at the «Little Remark» International Contest for Plays by Russian-Speaking Playwrights (Rus: Маленькая ремарка) in the nomination for fairy-tales.
The world of the fairy-tale combines technical progress and wizardry. So it was important to accordingly illustrate inventions inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, as well as the magical aura of adventures and true love. The style of the illustrations refer to Medieval engravings. Their expressiveness is achieved through high contrast of silhouettes, textural saturation, and concise composition.
The layout permits highlighting and structurally supporting the expressiveness of the illustrations. The white space of the strips creates the effect of airiness, amplifying the contrast of graphics and typesetting.
Miniatures with calligraphic titles to the scenes create a series exposing the characters of the protagonists.
Strips create another series demonstrating the plot dynamics.
Fonts: PT Sans and PT Serif Size: 70×100 1/16 200 pages Cover: coated paper, 300 g/m2 Block: offset paper, 100 g/m2 Offset printing Circulation: 400 copies (Russian) + 400 copies (Belarusian)
Illustrations and calligraphy: Maryna Anishchyk Book design and layout: Kseniya Shtalenkova
