Author: Gerd Birsner

with drawings by Arnold Stach

Walbert, the old humpback whale, is not allowed on Noah's Ark because he is too fat. Boing! Beep, the young yellow bird, doesn't want to go on the ark because it smells like elephants there. That smells like complications, especially since there is also “Klau's!”, the garlic-chewing, thieving pirate magpie who stole Noah's piggy bank from Rosa. With her pack, a pot full of opossums, a sack full of garlic and a snoring sawtooth fish, she is looking for Phantonia.

And there is also “Salü”, the duck with the burgundy red beret, who invented a yellow airship waddling submersible and who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. She is also on her way to Phantonia, the island where sounds grow on the trees and where a great treasure is said to be hidden that makes everyone happy: music!

Walbert begins many sentences that make him happy with “earlier than…”. Piep is happy when he can dream about “later, when…”. Isn't that the basis for a friendship that is as deep as the ocean?

Walbert & Piep is a book for children that adults can laugh at too! Here two people have come together in which the child in the man is still very much alive. The result: Walbert & Piep, a children's book that even adults are reluctant to put down.

The illustrator: Arnold Stach (born 1969) comes from Esslingen am Neckar.

He is a young, troubled graphic designer with a childish streak. In the 1980s, when Birsner worked at SDR in Stuttgart and lived in Esslingen, "Arnie" was Birsner's lawnmower.

After several unsuccessful attempts to conquer the local music scene with guitar riffs, he decided to look for riffs on the North Sea coast. He finds a new Wa(h)l home with the Bremen Hanseatic League.