The Kiosk

Olga has been working in the kiosk for a long time. She knows exactly what all her customers want, from the man in the sunglasses that reads horoscopes and buys lotto tickets to the tourists who always need directions to the art museum. In fact, Olga lives at the kiosk too: when she closes the shutters of an evening, she stretches out on the stacks of magazines and boxes of chocolate bars and goes to sleep, dreaming of faraway beaches.

One day, some mean kids push Olga’s kiosk over, making her realise that in fact she can walk around with the kiosk on her, like a dress. Yet when Olga falls in the river, she floats peacefully for days until she washes up on the beach. Here, Olga still knows what her customers want – and she gets to watch the sunset every night, too.

Anete Melece’s beautiful painted illustration uses bold strokes to create an endearing childlike style yet with lots of gorgeous detail and colour. The pages where we can look inside the kiosk are absolutely delightful, as we count the boxes of lotto tickets, the different magazines on the wall and the different sweets and snacks – and the final spread where Olga watches the sunset is a beautiful end to a lovely story about the brilliant things that can happen when your life is turned upside down.