Illustrated with lush, detailed drawings and accompanied by droll, lightly absurd imitations of marketing copy, each of Beisner’s toys will have children and adults inspired to imagine eccentric creations of their own.
In September 2014, the American poet and writer Matthea Harvey, born in Germany in 1973 but raised in England, named Beisner’s Fantastic Toys as the earliest inspiration for her own artistic development. Asked which book to read to understand Harvey’s lyrical work, she answered: “Fantastic Toys, by Monika Beisner. A book I read over and over again as a child. It features such wonders as a heated sheep toboggan and winged jumping boots. Four years ago, I discovered the reason we had that magical book – my mother had gone to elementary school with Monika. For me, it was as if she’d gone to school with Marilyn Monroe and never mentioned it.”
Published in the New York Review Children’s Collection.
