Mr Yannis Metaxas wrote in To Vima about Ikaros’s children’s books.

Mr Yannis Metaxas, professor emeritus at the University of Athens and full member of the Académie Européenne Interdisciplinaire des Sciences, on the occasion of Axel Scheffler’s children’s book *The New Friend*, the new story of the beloved characters Tic and Tela, for young and old alike, takes a look back at the children’s books published by our company with this lovely piece he wrote for the Sunday edition of the newspaper To Vima (published on 31 July 2016).We are republishing the text below: A children’s book, then! By Axel Scheffler. Which, along with some other equally appealing titles, is available from Ikaros Publications. So that children can fly away with them. Little Icaruses. But what is a children’s book? More precisely, what can it be? First and foremost, it is an object (before its words and its pictures). A thing to look at, to touch, to smell. But also to hear! Don’t some books, as they open—especially the first time—make a faint, unfathomable sound? Something like a soft rustle... the softer ones? Something like a crunch... the sturdier ones? Memories that return later. And sometimes, right through them, one remembers that book. Benji Davies’ *The Little Bear Goes on Holiday* may be one of them, with words wonderfully rendered by F. Mandilaras, though here the eyes are guided by the fingers. Tik and Tela, the New Friend tells us how friendship is born. Without words. But with innocent words, it is bound together afterwards! This book, an example of tangible aesthetics, has a texture that creates a special bond with little hands. Its cover, a little cushion, removes any resistance to picking it up. And the book fits in effortlessly. What subtle things can these books from Vouli Street teach us? Through their shapes: the square, the rectangle, the friendly curves? A lesson in flexibility, an unconscious opposition to the absolute rigidity of often brutal verticality. Oliver Jeffers’ book *How to Catch a Star* is a feast! It will leave the child with the Cavafian suspicion that whatever you desire from the heavens, you may find it on earth, provided, of course, you are willing to search for it. Is there not an Odysseus lurking here? Is it easy for a child who has loved such books to later seek out something aesthetically inferior? What do you think? I just wanted to say a few words about all this. And thank you. Mr Yannis Metaxas, professor emeritus at the University of Athens, is a full member of the Académie Européenne Interdisciplinaire des Sciences.