Multiple-times best selling author Dan Brown debuted a children’s book where the plot is accompanied by music composed by the author, but this is not the only thing making Wild Symphony interesting: the drawings in the book were created by Hungarian illustrator Zsuzsanna Bátori.
Zsuzsanna Bátori was contacted by her agency, London-based Good Illustration Agency with the news that there was a selection taking place at Penguin Random House, and she also made it to the list of candidates, out of whom one would get to illustrate the book of the recognized American writer.
“And just a few days before Christmas, my agent told me I was selected as the winner. It was about a rhymed children’s book, and the author was none other but Dan Brown. Then I asked if we were talking about the Dan Brown who wrote the Da Vinci Code. Yes, we are, they said. I’ll never forget the storm of emotions I felt at the moment. Unfortunately the project was strictly confidential, and so I couldn’t tell anyone. It was hard as hell.” – the illustrator told us.
The illustrator and the author met in Zagreb, where they listened to the music composed by Dan Brown and performed by the Zagreb Festival Orchestra and they agreed on the first sketches here, too. The cooperation went very smoothly, after a few months of work, several pages of sketches were approved without changes. The illustrations were made digitally, but their details evoke hand-drawn drawings.
The basis of Wild Symphony is music: the reader meets new animals on every page, who then team up to form a symphonic orchestra at the end. The book comes with a free app, which recognizes the pages allowing us to play the piece belonging to the given story. In addition, as told by the illustrator, the book “is full of codes and puzzles – it’s a Da Vinci Code for kids.”
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