Hedgehog

The book by Katarzyna Kotowska, Hedgehog, is a children’s book. Published by Wydawnictwo Egmont in 2003.

One of the most beautiful human skills is fairy-tale writing. Fairy tales have many different functions in our lives, they provide us not only with entertainment, but above all, they allow us to better understand the world around us and the feelings that accompany us. By metaphorizing reality, which is often difficult, we can more easily touch, explore and work through it. By transferring what is incomprehensible and unobvious to the simplest denominator, we gain a clearer picture. And this is exactly what Katarzyna Kotowska’s book Jeż (Hedgehog) does. For how to explain that our child was born to another woman? How to describe the search for one’s own child and the fight for it?

Kotowska not only metaphorises the adoption process by showing it from the parents’ point of view, but also creates a beautiful allegory of a child experienced by lack, loneliness and rejection. All negative feelings and experiences add up to a thorny armour turning the child into a hedgehog and only patience and true love can blunt the thorns and eventually lead to their transformation into wings.

Not all fairy tales are written for children, but all fairy tales change the world for a little better.

Currently the book is only available in Polish under the name Jeż.

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