Vienna Libraries SommerLeseClub 2026: a dragon story and sticker booklet

In 2026 I wrote and illustrated the Pickerlheft, a sticker booklet / sticker album, for the SommerLeseClub of Stadtbücherei Wien, the Vienna Libraries summer reading club for children and teenagers between 6 and 14.

That was a new kind of commission for me. I had illustrated stories before. This time I was also asked to write the story itself: 300 to 500 words, told across a 12-page Pickerlheft, with illustrations, stickers, a bookmark and a poster around it.

The story became Drehbuch mit Drache (in English: Screenplay Featuring a Dragon): a group of children decide to make their own film during the summer holidays. They need an idea, roles, props, a camera, a dragon, and somehow a way to agree on what they are actually doing.

Before the behind-the-scenes part, here is a quick glimpse of the finished thing: a small film crew, a sticker booklet, a lot of props, and one dragon who clearly understood the assignment.

The rest is about how it got there: the brief, the story choices, and the slightly messy path from first sketches to print-ready pages.

The brief

The SommerLeseClub, literally a summer reading club, is built around a simple ritual. Children visit one of the Vienna public libraries during the summer, borrow books, comics, audiobooks, films, games or other media, and fill out a short review afterwards. For each review they receive a surprise envelope with stickers for their Pickerlheft. Over the summer there are also sticker swap events in the libraries.

So the booklet had to do several things at once. It had to be a small story, a collectible object, a motivation to return to the library, and a printed world that could work for children from 6 to 14. That age range is wide. Too cute would lose the older kids. Too grown up would miss the younger ones.

In the first meeting we also talked about diversity, democracy education, multilinguality and whether the project could feel a bit more like comics than a classic picture book, so diversity and democratic decision making became part of the story’s structure.

Why the children make a film

I liked the idea of a film project because it gives every child something to do.

Someone has ideas. Someone wants action. Someone thinks about costumes. Someone holds the camera. Someone makes the special effects. Someone has to say, okay, but what are we actually filming?

That is where the democracy part entered the story, without turning it into a lesson. The children have to choose what kind of film they want to make. They have to divide roles. They disagree, change plans, help each other and keep going when the first scene turns into chaos.

The dragon helped. A dragon is dramatic enough for action, funny enough for mistakes, and flexible enough to appear as a costume, a prop, a fantasy element and a sticker motif. It also gave the visual world a clear centre.

A diverse group without making diversity the headline

The children in the booklet are deliberately diverse. Different skin tones, different hair, different clothes, different temperaments. I wanted the group to feel like children you might actually meet in Vienna, not like one generic main character copied five times.

At the same time, I did not want the story to stop and explain that. The diversity is there because it should be there. The story is about making a film together.

That distinction matters to me. Representation should be visible, but it does not always need a spotlight and a speech bubble saying, look, representation.

More comic than picture book

The meeting note about comic elements was useful. A sticker booklet has its own rhythm. Children flip through it, search for missing stickers, compare pages, maybe only read parts of it at first.

So I tried to think less in terms of one quiet illustrated scene after another, and more in terms of small beats: a reaction, a prop, a failed take, a dramatic pose, a funny accident. The images needed to work as part of the story, but also as individual sticker moments.

That suited the film idea. A film shoot is already made of fragments: scenes, cuts, props, mistakes, reactions. The format and the story helped each other.

From Fresco to Illustrator to Procreate

My workflow moved through three tools.

I started with rough sketches in Adobe Fresco. At that stage I was looking for energy: how the children stand together, how chaotic the film shoot should feel, how the dragon enters the scene.

Then I built the structure in Adobe Illustrator. That was the production part: page sizes, sticker spaces, print logic, repeated elements, readable text and the relationship between booklet, bookmark and poster.

Illustrator (left) vs. Procreate (right)

For the final artwork I used Procreate. That is where the images became less mechanical again. I added texture, softened edges, worked on facial expressions and gave the characters small imperfections. Those details matter, especially when a project needs to feel lively rather than polished to death.

Making a small world for the library

The final materials included the Pickerlheft, around 20 stickers, a bookmark and a DIN A2 poster. The dragon had to be recognisable everywhere. The children had to work in large and small formats. The cover needed to invite children into the story quickly. And the stickers had to be small enough to collect, but still feel like little moments from the film.

That is what I enjoy about projects like this. You are not only making one illustration. You are building a small system that children can carry around, fill in, trade, complete and maybe keep somewhere after summer is over.

Why this project stayed with me

Libraries are one of the few places where reading still feels open. You can walk in without a plan, find something strange, take it home and come back for more. No pressure. No performance.

That is a good starting point for illustration and storytelling. Not “reading is important, please respect it”. More like: there is something here for you. Come in and see.

For the SommerLeseClub 2026, that invitation became a group of children making a film, disagreeing, improvising, laughing at mistakes and somehow ending up with a dragon. I wrote the story, illustrated the world around it, and enjoyed exactly that mix: library, comics, teamwork, print design and a bit of chaos.