Hlava nehlava

The Hlava nehlava Creative Group - who are we?

The Hlava nehlava (directly translated into english as “The Helter-skelter) is a group of creative people which has been formed around the well known Czech children fiction writer Ivona Březinová on Literary Academy of Josef Škvorecký in Prague during lessons of creating writing in years 2005 and 2006 when they began their first joint work on their first collection of short horror stories later called Nail Biting (Zuby nehty in Czech). The aim of all its members is to bring qualitatively equal native Czech books to Czech children readers.

After successfully publishing Nail Biting in spring of 2007 and its huge success amongst small readers, the Hlava nehlava Creative Group decided to continue in their joint work and delivered a second book - another short story collection, but in different genre, this time it was adventure taking place in exotic corners of the Earth. A Thousand Scars (Tisíc jizev in Czech) was published in spring of 2008. After the second book, the Hlava nehlava Creative group has aimed at their next target – detective stories for children. The third book is actually in production while the promotion of the freshly published second book A Thousand Scars (Tisíc jizev) is in full scale throughout the bookstores, schools and internet.

Nail Biting (Zuby nehty)

19 horrors stories, which children will be stick on tooth and nail

After unexpected success of the book The corpse swallower and other horrible stories in Czech Republic another one, more sophisticated and charged with more clever fear, is being published. A collection of horrors Zuby nehty (Nail Biting). As the name itself proclaims, nineteen stories of this book will be animated both scare and concrete clues and fright of unknown, unseizable, and just because of that it is trully nail biting…

The collection of short stories Nail Biting (Zuby nehty) is especially aimed on young readers, children (from the age of 12), but certainly appeals to adult readers as well. Each of the nineteen scary stories is working with original not hasn´t been seen and read yet motives. Responding to strong request of czech children for scary stories, which are lacking on our book market and so far if there are some, they are just translations from different languages using motives and settings that are not so close to czech children.

Nine writers on the whole, current or former students of Literary Academy of Josef Škvorecký, create the stories in their own way. The main emphasis of the stories is every time something else. It can be the setting, the atmosphere, description or psychology of the main characters . Another time a surprisingly funny scene emerges from the depth of a horror story and the whole story is drawn up in the ironic style full of novelity and unexpected hyperboles. Thanks to great numbers of writers the book Nail Biting (Zuby nehty) has created a really interesting universe, because each of them takes up the topic of fear in a different way, so that every reader can find what suits them best. Artistic book designing has been made as the plot itself by illustrations of different authors, who complete unique atmosphere of each of the nineteen stories with their own graphical style. The part of the book is a CD-ROM with scarry surprise for free.

List of short stories in the book Nail Biting

(arranged by authors)

The intro animation of the interactive CD featured with the book Nail Biting

Intro video

For interested English speaking publishers

If our book caught your attention, you can contact us at strnad.marATgmail.com. We already have first draft of English translation of our texts. We also have rights to publish them outside Czech republic and we will welcome any offers on publishing our book in English.

A Thousand Scars (Tisíc jizev)

… and each one has its story

11 paths to adventure - Embark on a suspenseful trip to far-away Mongolia, the shores of the Amazon, the ruins of legendary Carthage, the Romanian pastures, a pirate island in the Caribbean, an Irish holy ground, through Viking mysteries, to Lake Victoria, into the underwater kingdom of sharks, the icy plains of unknown continents, or track down a Mentawai inside the Prague ZOO. Novelty stories with just the right amount of fear and humor to delight readers of any age.

The book A Thousand Scars (Tisíc jizev) loosely connects to Nail Biting (Zuby nehty), a collection of horror stories, and the first work of the Hlava Nehlava Creative Group. The continuity is also personal - eight out of the eleven adventure stories had been written by authors that debuted in Nail Biting. it was a very successful project, although it was their first book, that somewhat served as a learning piece in the process of book making. The 3000 copies literally disappeared during the first three months after the release. A Thousand Scars will be printed in 4000 copies.

A Thousand Scars adheres to the typical work criteria of the Hlava Nehlava group - a choice of the adventure genre and original themes, that should peel children’s faces off of monitors and TV screens, and make them open a book again. The authors also bring lots of interesting information and facts about the exotic corners of the world, making them easier to remember when reading these works of suspense. The adventure stories are realistic, and are backed by hours of studying literature to ensure the cultural, historic and local correctness.

The readers can, through A Thousand Scars, pay a visit to various locations all over the world - search for Hannibal’s great treasure throughout Italy and Switzerland, witness a druid ritual deep in the Celtic forests of Ireland, dive into the underwater caves of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, take part in a search and rescue mission after an airplane catastrophe in the deserted icy plains of Norway, live an adventure in the Prague ZOO’s Indonesian pavilion, meet the new age pirates sailing the Carribean, face a bear in the Carpathian Mountains, visit Central Africa and Lake Victoria, trace the history of Vikings on the American continent, hunt for Anacondas in Brazil, and finally figure out the deadly Olgojchorchoj worm mystery in Mongolia.

This around-the-world trip is also enriched by local myths and legends of far-away civilizations cleverly worked into the stories by their authors. You can find such echoes throughout all the stories, but especially in Song of the Dead Queen and Kvoj, Son of Khan, where the mythical factor had been put into an exciting and mature form.

A Thousand Scars story list:

The book wouldn’t be complete without illustrations from the University of West Bohemia’s Institute of Art and Design in Pilsen, led by Barbara Šalamounová. They have also prepared the final book design.

The readers will also find an enclosed gift in the form of a bonus CD. Aside from author and illustrator short biographies and information about the featured countries and animals, one can find computer games linked to the stories themselves. The CD also includes a bonus story, in which you’ll search for a mysterious cult in the Greek Athens and as a cherry on the cake - a professional documentary about the making of the book, filmed by independent filmmaker and Zlín Film School graduate Petr Smělík.

Short clip from the documentary about making A Thousand Scars

(no english subtitles so far)

Documentary clip