The book's environmental theme means we will be printing it on Forestry Stewardship Council-certified paper.

Following a deal with Italian publishing house, Zoolibri, our first picture book of 2010 will be The Bear with the Sword by Davide Cali and Gianluca Foli.

The book tells the story of a (remarkably handsome) bear, who takes his powerful sword into the forest to chop down trees. He gets rather carried away, and chops down everything in his path. Some time later, a flood washes away his fortress and he goes out to investigate who is responsible. The answer, he discovers, has more to do with his sword than he could have imagined.

A powerful fable about the consequences of our actions, The Bear with the Sword is another innovative and memorable story from Swiss-Italian Davide Cali. We love Cali’s work (as does most of Europe): The Bear with the Sword will be the sixth of his books we have published.

Illustrated by renowned Italian illustrator, Gianluca Foli (making his picture book debut), the book has already been included in the International Youth Library’s White Ravens Catalogue. The White Ravens label is given to books that deserve worldwide attention because of their universal themes and/or their exceptional and often innovative artistic and literary style and design.

Gianluca Foli's illustrations incorporate watercolour and collage effects.

The Bear with the Sword was also a finalist in Korea’s prestigious CJ Picture Book Awards, which selects the top children’s picture books from all over the world each year.

The book will be published in March 2010. As is often the case, our edition will be the first English language edition anywhere in the world. (There’s a French edition out too.)

If you haven’t done so previously, I can recommend a visit to both creators’ websites, which showcase their impressive bodies of work:

• Davide Cali
• Gianluca Foli

We’ve also created a short promotional video for the book, which you can view on our Youtube Channel here.