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Tomi Ungerer was born in 1931 in Strasbourg, Alsace, to a wealthy family of watchmakers. The occupation of Alsace by the German army in 1950 and World Ward II would be decisive factors for Tomi, who saw her family becoming poor and suffering the Nazi’s indoctrination and the ban on speaking Alsacian at school, where he was described in a report card as a “wicked and subversive boy”.
Ungerer travelled throughout almost all Europe on foot and he published his first drawings in Simplizissimus magazine. He started to study at l'École des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, but “after a few months, I was politely asked to go out”.
In the mid 50s, he moved to New York, where he started his amazing career as an artist, illustrator and an author of children’s books. After having been on a farm in New Scotland (Canada) for several years, he is currently living with his family between southeast Ireland and Strasbourg.
He is the author of an unbelievable number of books, published in 40 languages. Tomi Ungerer has been awarded with numerous and important literary prizes, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1998. In October 2000, the Council of Europe designated him the European ambassador of Childhood and Education and, in 2007 the French State creates a whole museum devoted to him in his home city, Strasbourg.
He has been awarded recently with the Thomas-Nast-Medaille, given to all his career.
“Nobody, I would say, nobody is so original. Tomi had a great impact in everybody” (Maurice Sendak, about the influential role of Tomi Ungerer in children’s books).
"An inventive author of books for children. Children’s books by Tomi Ungerer, like The Three Robbers, the Moon Man, or No Kiss for Mother, which appeared some decades ago, have not got even a simple speck of dust" (Libération, Paris).
He has been nominated to the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (A.L.M.A) 2014 and 2015.
Finn and Cara are brothers and they live in the Irish coast, where sheep graze on green cliffs, wind howls in the chimney and grey fog rises over the sea.
One day, when the brothers go sailing on a rowboat around the bay, a thick fog looms over them and ocean current drags them to a strange beach. Finn and Cara have arrived in Fog Island, where nobody has ever come back from.
But they don’t lose heart and eventually meet the amazing master of the island, who tells them where the fog comes from.
A story about courage, curiosity and the unforeseeable forces of nature.
Selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best picture books in 2013
Selected by The New York Times to contribute the 10 Best Illustrated Book List, in 2013
“A new work by one of the most brilliant working illustrators in the world” (The New York Times).
“The Fog Man shows again Ungerer’s aim: to take children seriously. Tomi Ungerer brilliantly harvests the atmosphere of an overcast sea. A dark, strained sea, which is never too frightful thank to the presence of the two children characters” (Die Zeit).
"... wonderful pictures that are set up in a rural and peaceful scenery, delicious derawings of animals and ladscapes with a colour chart based on gray, brown, blueish green and some touches of red. Ungerer can express feelings and emotions from a goneby age, but that age looks familiar to us because is the age of marvelous tales, of stories about the beginning of things, about how important is to take the reins of your life". (Ana Garralón) .
"Acclaimed author Tomi Ungerer success in giving form to the fog, the moon above the sea, the tense atmosphere on just a few pages. Conceived as tribute to Ireland, this is a thrilling, fantastic book" (ABC Cultural).
“… What I find interesting in this wonderful tale is the symbolic meaning that it contains and that has left me completely dazzled (…) An absolutely wonderful story. Extraordinary” (Peb Bruno).
