H. U. S. (Hus úplně světovej) – Smolíková Klára (2022)

Experienced author of popular educational books for children, Klára Smolíková, has processed current historical knowledge about Jan Hus in the form of an exciting story aimed at readers around thirteen years old. The protagonist is not Jan Hus, but a high school student named Petr, who has to write a school paper about Hus. He is not at all keen on the assigned topic – just as he does not want to live in Hroby near Tábor, where his family moved from Prague overnight. However, when he starts talking to his classmate Magda and other people who know something about Hus, the unwanted task turns into an adventurous journey. The historical figure carved in stone before Petr gradually comes to life, along with Hus's contemporaries, his era, various places of influence, and the ideas that influenced later Czech thinkers, artists, scholars, and politicians. Everyone took something different from Hus, and each era adapted him to its own image. Petr also searches for and finds those aspects of his personality that resonate with him and have something to say to his father, who, as a brave journalist, has found himself in a tight spot. The story is imaginatively complemented by illustrations from Lukáš Fibrich and paraphrases of actual statements from historical figures. For more thoughtful readers, the expert advisor of the publication, Richard Vlasák, has added at the end...