EDEBÉ Children's Literature Award 2013:
MOLSA (MOSS)by David Cirici

• The Jury has unanimously decided to select Molsa for its originality and its ability to move, by presenting the story through the vision and senses of a lost dog, with that ability to track life and its memories through smell.
• The author defines this work as “the story of a loss, full of tension, with joys and sadness, and a surprising ending.”
• The book, aimed at readers ages 10 and up, will be published in March with a circulation of 6.000 copies.

A smell floats in the air.
The excitement soon wears thin.

With these verses the story of Moss begins, and in each chapter new rhymes take us into his adventures. Moss is a dog who likes to ride in the bicycle basket and watch the trees and clouds go by. He also loves to chase his shadow between the hanging sheets, run after the children or chew on the pedal of Janinka's bicycle. He is a very happy domestic dog until the war brutally separates him from Janinka and Mirek, the children with whom he runs around the house and who tickle his belly with their bare feet.

A bomb erases everything known and leaves Moss homeless and without family. Surviving in the ruined city, he discovers the things he doesn't like, like having his stomach make noise from hunger, being covered in fleas and ticks, or having no one call him by his name anymore.

But despite the sad smells of war, Moss will never stop searching for the light spicy smell of his beloved and longed-for Janinka. In a context that no one understands, Moss will have to learn to be a stray dog, a wild dog, a guard dog and even a circus dog.

The road is not going to be easy, but Moss will overcome all the tests until his sense of smell takes him back to the side of those he loves most.