Picture Books & Board Games

Daniel Fehr, born in 1980 in Winterthur, is one of the most prolific authors of children’s books from Switzerland. His colorful worlds, fanciful stories, and clever mechanisms come to life in picture books, board books, and novelty books. In addition to his writings, Daniel develops board games for children and families. He has published over thirty books and games in twenty languages, many of which have received international awards.

While Daniel loves to entertain with his writings and games, he has also undergone serious training. After a banking apprenticeship, he studied art photography at the Zurich University of the Arts and the School of Visual Arts in New York, and German literature and media studies at Princeton University.

Today, Daniel Fehr lives and works in Switzerland, where he initiated and has headed for several years the Schweizer Vorlesetag (“Swiss Reading Aloud Day”), a nation-wide reading promotion initiative of the Swiss Institute for Children’s and Youth Media (SIKJM). In 2020/21 he served as a mentor at the Bolo Klub, a program to support a new generation of picture book makers in Switzerland.

Daniel Fehr, Schriftsteller und Spielautor

Photo © Roland Krauer

Financial Support for Readings with Daniel: If you would like to invite Daniel for a reading, you may apply for (additional) funding by Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council. Pro Helvetia supports international literary events by covering the fees and travel costs for Swiss literary professionals. Readings that take place on a single day can be funded at up to CHF 600 in total. The maximum sponsorship amount per event at large is CHF 5,000. Applications are due at least eight weeks before the first day of the event. If you have any questions regarding the application process, do not hesitate to contact Daniel or prohelvetia.ch.

Picture Books and Board Games in English

Daniel Fehr writes in German and English. Original editions of his works have appeared in over a dozen languages and countries, including Switzerland, Germany, England, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Russia. For a selection of books and games available in English, please see below.

If you are a publisher and interested in publishing licenses of any of Daniel’s picture books or board games, please contact Daniel or the corresponding publishing company.

Let's Build a Dam by Daniel Fehr and Mariachiara Di Giorgio

Illustrated by Mariachiara Di Giorgio
NorthSouth Books (2023)
Original edition: German / English
Ages: 4+
ISBN: 9-780-7-358-4501-5

Let’s Build a Dam!

Siblings May, Lily, and Noah build a dam. Stone by stone, their dam grows higher and higher, until their creation attracts the attention of fishermen, pirates, and even the King and his fleet. The sky’s the limit, until Noah wants his stone back . . .

Ella in the Garden of Giverny, a picture book by Daniel Fehr and Monika Vaicenavičienė

Illustrated by Monika Vaicenavičienė
Prestel junior (2022)
Original edition: German / English
Ages: 5+
ISBN: 978-3-7913-7475-8

Ella in the Garden of Giverny

Ella and her family have moved from the US to a little village near Paris. In the village lives a painter whom her father admires very much: Claude Monet. Ella often watches the artist, who has a funny long beard and always wears a hat, in his garden at Giverny. One day, Monet notices the girl secretly sketching a portrait of him. He encourages her with her art, and tells her about his own beginnings as a painter: ‘I didn’t want to make things look beautiful – I wanted to paint things as I saw them. I wanted to paint my impression of them.’ A beautiful and insightful picture book about Monet’s life and finding the courage to create your own pictures, even when they may not look perfect from the start.

A Big Help

Illustrated by Benjamin Leroy
nubeOCHO (2018)
Original edition: English / Spanish
Ages: 3+
ISBN: 978-84-17123-21-5

A Big Help

Badger has lost his teddy and he is very sad. His friend, Bear, is going to help him find it. Together they will search the meadow, the bushes, and the lake… Will they find it?

Bear will not give up, and perhaps Badger will stop feeling sad. The power of friendship in an emotional and fun story.

»Mr Left and Mr Right« von Daniel Fehr and Celeste Aires

Illustrated by Celeste Aires
Templar Publishing (2017)
Original edition: English
Ages: 3+
ISBN: 978-1-7837-0667-9

Mr Left and Mr Right

Mr Left lives on the left page. And Mr Right lives on the right page. They just want to be together, but there’s no way of getting from one page to the other. And they’ve tried everything! They try going across the page, they try going over the page and they even try going under the page in this delightful gatefold novelty. Children will love the simple narrative and will marvel at Mr Right’s ingenious solution – it’s one to get readers big or small thinking outside the box.

Woodlands, Legespiel von Daniel Fehr

Ravensburger (2018)
Ages: 10+
2-4 players
20-40 minutes playing time

Woodlands

Woodlands transports you to the wonderful world of legends and fairy tales, with four different stories of increasing difficulty. Each story consists of several chapters, with each chapter showing a plastic overlay that features various collectibles, obstacles, and that chapter’s goal. Each player then builds their own network of pathways on their personal playing board to beat the chapter and score as many points as possible. Once players are satisfied with what they’ve built, the overlay is placed on top of each player’s pathways to check which goals they’ve met.

Two additional overlays may be used to increase the difficulty of any chapter – and to increase the difficulty further, players may use the back side of their path tiles for a greater challenge.

Narabi (Spiele von Daniel Fehr)

Z-Man Games (2018)
Originally published by Lifestyle Boardgames (2018)
Ages: 10+
3-5 players
10-15 minutes playing time

Narabi

Work together to build a peaceful stone garden with everything in its proper place in this elegant cooperative card game.

Working together, players must put numbered stones in the correct arrangement in as few moves as possible. A harmonious stone garden must be in sequential order. It may seem easy, but stones can only be moved in certain ways. In Narabi, numbered stone cards will be randomly sleeved together with restriction cards that control how a stone moves. Players must exchange stones, working toward the correct arrangement one move at a time while still following the rules on each stone.

With limited knowledge of other players’ stones, a perfect stone garden can only be achieved through teamwork, memory, and strategic precision. Asking yes or no questions, players can deduce the rules for each stone. With over 200 card combinations as well as optional rules, each game of Narabi presents new challenges to work together and achieve serenity.