Clara and the man with books in his window by Maria Teresa Andruetto illustrated by Martina Trach translated by Elisa Amado

"What does courage mean?' 'Courage is being brave enough 

to live the way you want to, the way you believe."

Before you read this book stretch out the cover and think about the girl, her basket, the distance she is walking and why the colour is yellow - to my eye this denotes a nostalgic memory.

On the title page you will see some very curious objects - with a group of students you could use these to either predict the plot of this book or better yet you could use the objects as student writing inspiration. There is a faded flower in a vase, a book, a clock, two wooden birds, a tiny picture of a house and one item I cannot identify.

The setting for this true story is 1920s Argentina. Clara's mother is a laundress. Clara has the task of delivering laundry to Juan - a man who never leaves his house. Juan is a wealthy man with a huge book collection but he also has deep shame about an event from the past. 

"What is your name?"

"Clara. 

Why are you shut in?"

This is a gentle story or as Mark Macleod once discussed - a quiet book. The illustrations are stunning and so powerful showing a story well beyond the minimal text.

I picked up this book at Gleebooks a few weeks ago because:

• I liked the book shape and landscape format
• There is a medal on the cover (Hans Christian Andersen award)
• The title is intriguing
• The copy I purchased has a dust jacket
• Many pages have no text
• The designer has used two fonts - one for the words in Clara's head and one for conversations with Juan
• This is a translated books (I always look for these) This book was originally written in Spanish in 2018 and the publisher Greystone Books has produced an English edition in 2025. The Spanish title is Clara y el hombre en la ventana.
• Greystone books are a Canadian publishing company - Canadians make fantastic books
• Finally a staff member recommended this book because I asked to see some picture books for older readers and high school students. 

This is the page with the text I quoted at the beginning of this post.

Trach’s illustrative style is so different from what I am used to, I want to own the book just for that.  Andruetto’s story is more one that an adult will enjoy more than a child, so it would have to be read to children.  Kiss The Book Jr

The spare text leaves ample room for illustrations to co-narrrate the story, from the a spread of the girl making letters with a stick to her shadow-like outline as she watches the birds and later reads the books she’s borrowed while making her laundry delivery rounds. They show as well the passage of time as she matures both as a reader and as a friend to the man. Readers imagine the relationship between the dreamy protagonist and her practical, hardscrabble mother, as well as with the absent grandmother who taught her to read and in this way fed her dreams. The entire story has the feel of a fairy tale, one that parallels the fairy tale that the man has gifted her and she has taken to heart. Global Literature in Libraries

The publisher list this book for readers aged 5-8 but I disagree. I would share this book with mature students aged 11+ because it is important to talk about what has happened to this man and why he is afraid to go outside. He didn't follow his friend? Was he afraid of persecution or imprisonment? Older students may understand the role of the Catholic Church during this time. I searched the Canadian library archives for a list of subject headings that have been applied to this book:  Library of Congress Subject Headings Friendship—Juvenile fiction; Identity (Psychology)—Juvenile fiction; Recluses—Juvenile fiction; Gay men—Juvenile fiction; Courage—Juvenile fiction; Books and reading—Juvenile fiction; Argentina—Social life and customs—20th century—Juvenile fiction

And there is a whole art lesson you could use with this book about the symbolism of colour and the use of colour as a way to convey relationships and memories. I guess with younger students this might not be an issue - reviewers like the School Library Journal list this book for K-2.

See more art by Martina Trach here. Just take a look at this brilliant illustration:

Jacket flap information is important! This is how I discovered the author of this book who comes from Argentina, Maria Teressa Andruetto, won the Hans Christian Andersen award in 2012 for Writing. Nearly all of her books are in Spanish. 

Companion books for younger readers and also senior primary students:

The Bridges

The Book of Gold

Nour's Secret Library

Pablo Neruda Book of Questions illustrated by Paloma Valdivia translated by Sara Lissa Paulson

Where does the stuff of dreams go? 

Does it pass into the dreams of others?

I am a fan of books with questions (and sometimes even answers). This book has some incredible and possibly unanswerable questions that might spark some philosophical discussions with your students in all grades. Here are a few of the questions selected for this book from 39 of the original poems that I enjoyed thinking about:

Who shouted for joy when the colour blue was born?

Do unshed tears wait in little lakes?

How did the abandoned bicycle find its freedom?

Does smoke strike up a conversation with clouds?

What knowledge is in the bee for it to figure out its itinerary?

Why don't they teach helicopters how to draw honey from the sun?

And what do you call that month between December and January?

See more art from Pablo Neruda Book of Questions

The text on this page says:

What do you call a flower that flits from bird to bird? 

Which birds dictate the order of the flock while it flies?

Editor's Note: "We hope that you enjoy these questions, and that, however they arrive for each of you, they come as a reminder of the vastness of our unknowing and a call to passionate engagement in endlessly re-envisioning the world."

Wait until you see the COVER of this book.  My image above does not do it justice. All of the printing is on a clear overlay and then when you lift this off you see the amazing illustration which stretches across the front and back covers.

With a clear acetate jacket with striking green lettering (an homage to Neruda’s affinity for writing in green ink, which he saw as the color of hope), this edition contains six magnificent gatefold spreads that lift to reveal more questions and expanded illustrations, inviting readers into deeper and deeper reflection. Enchanted Lion

Read more about this book and especially about the creation of the illustrations here. 

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) was known as a poet and ambassador of the Chilean people. During a time of social upheaval, he traveled the world as a diplomat and an exile, served as a Senator for the Chilean Communist Party, and published more than 35,000 pages of poetry in his native Spanish. Here are a few quick facts:

• Pablo Neruda was the pen name of Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
• He published his first poems when he was 13
• A Czech poet, Jan Neruda (1834-1891), inspired the young poet and so he took his last name
• He received numerous prestigious awards, including the International Peace Prize in 1950, the Lenin Peace Prize and the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971
• Neruda occupied many diplomatic positions in various countries during his lifetime and served a term as a Senator for the Chilean Communist Party
• When Neruda died in 1973, The Book of Questions was one of eight unpublished poetry manuscripts that lay on his desk

El libro de las preguntas (The Book of Questions) contains:

"320 unanswerable questions, these poems integrate the wonder of a child with the experiences of an adult. By turns Orphic, comic, surreal, and poignant, Neruda’s questions lead the reader beyond reason into realms of intuition and pure imagination. In his introduction, O’Daly writes, “These poems, more so than any of Neruda’s other work, remind us that living in a state of visionary surrender to the elemental questions, free of the quiet desperation of clinging too tightly to answers, may be our greatest act of faith.”

The 320 questions in the original book were presented in a sequence of 74 poems each containing three to six questions for a total of 320 questions. 

"What Neruda shares with us as an old man isn't the arrival of truth, but the astonishing freedom of a curious mind that dares to reimagine the world again and again."

Here is the English edition of his book (for adults):

Awards for Pablo Neruda Book of Questions illustrated by Paloma Valdivia:

• Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the 21st Century (So Far)
• NYT Best Children’s Book of 2022
• Marginalian (aka Brain Pickings) Favorite Book of 2022
• Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book of 2023, Outstanding Merit
• 2023 Bologna Ragazzi Award Amazing Bookshelf Selection

How did I find Pablo Neruda Book of Questions? I borrowed an odd little book from a library illustrated by Paloma Valdivia. At first I was unfamiliar with this name but digging deeper I found she was a Hans Chrsitian Andersen nominee in 2024 and that she comes from Chile. A few years ago our IBBY Australia group met up with an IBBY delegate from Chile and we were able to show her our NSW State Library children's book exhibition. Investigating the art of Palmoa Valdivia I saw this book cover and a few of the pages and I was intrigued. Then I saw this AUS$35 book was reduced to AUS$28 so I decided to buy it!

I have no expertise about Pablo Neruda but by chance I recently talked about this book which is a biography suitable for readers aged 7+ and which I was shown when we were hosting our visitor from Chile:

Pablo Neruda Poet of the People

Singing with Elephants by Margarita Engle

 

Brilliant, joyful, and deeply moving. Kirkus Star review

Publisher blurb: Cuban-born eleven-year-old Oriol lives in Santa Barbara, California, where she struggles to belong. But most of the time that’s okay, because she enjoys helping her parents care for the many injured animals at their veterinary clinic. Then Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature moves to town, and aspiring writer Oriol finds herself opening up. And when she discovers that someone is threatening the life of a baby elephant at her parents’ clinic, Oriol is determined to take action. As she begins to create a world of words for herself, Oriol learns it will take courage and strength to do what she thinks is right—even if it means keeping secrets from those she loves.

The baby elephant mentioned in this blurb is a twin. An unscrupulous actor who seeks fame at any cost takes one of the two-week-old baby elephants away from its mother. Oriol is determined to find the baby. She feels the grief of the mother and remaining twin very deeply. Once she finds little Song (his sister is Dance) Oriol then needs to spring into action. She organises a petition and with the help of Gabriela Mistral letters are written to other famous actors and to the Humane society. There must be a way to save this tiny elephant and stop the cruel intentions which would force her to perform in unnatural ways. 

Here are a few text quotes to give you a flavour of this verse novel:

My bird name
musical and sweet,
is one I chose 
for myself, long ago, in Cuba
when I knew who I was
and how 
to speak.

ELEPHANT ANATOMY

Standing in front of Chandra

I'm stunned into silence.

Tree-root feet.

Half-moon toenails.

Map-of-India ears.

Paintbrush tail.

A snake-shaped nose

with forty-thousand

muscles.

Her fifty pound heart pulses with love

for her soon-to-be newborn.

She's been pregnant for twenty-two months,

due any day.

She needs to eat three hundred pounds of hay

every twenty-four houses.

When she moves

she's as graceful

as a swaying

ocean wave.

MY FUTURE IS BLURRY (extract)

Gabriela Mistral is right-

I cannot predict the future,

but I can imagine a time

when wild animals

are no longer held captive

My words and actions

have shown me what

is possible.

Maybe the will change

the whole world

someday.

You can read more text extracts here.

Add this book to your list of verse novels to share with young readers aged 10+ up to age 13. 

The book is rich with simple yet profound expressions of love, loss, heartache, and wholeness. As we learn along with Oriol, poetry is the soul’s way of singing, whether that soul is human or animal. This lesson becomes more apparent as Oriol’s connection to the animals she cares for grows stronger and stronger, in particular her relationship with a pregnant elephant named Chandra whose rhythmic sways and sounds remind her of poetry. Good Reads with Ronna

I met Margarita Engle at a USBBY conference a few years ago so when I saw this verse novel in The Little Bookroom (Melbourne bookstore) I grabbed it.

Have you heard of Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) - the first Latin winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature? I had not heard of her but there are details at the back of Singing with elephants along with one of her poems.

"I wanted to imagine how she might have influenced a child ... so I invented a Cuban immigrant girl who loves animals and nature as much as Mistral."

"She believed children deserved kindness, and her reforms of rural education became a model for all Latin America. At the same time she became a world-famous poet, and served as a diplomat, representing the government of Chile while living in various countries. .... (She) was an influential peace activist (and one) of the founders of the League of Nationals and later UNICEF."

Awards:

• Rhode Island 2024 Children's Book Award Nominee
• Bank Street 2023 Best Children's Books
• New York Times Best Children’s Books of 2022
• Kirkus Best Middle Grade Books 2022
• School Library Journal-26 MG Books for Latinx Heritage Month 2022
• Nerdies Award, 2022
• Cybils Award Finalist
• School Library Journal Mock Newbery Suggestions
• Kirkus Starred Review
• Junior Library Guild Selection
• New York Times review
• NPR Morning Edition interview
• Publishers Weekly starred review

Margarita Engle is the author of these (Summer Birds is a firm favourite of mine).

The Capybaras by Alfredo Soderguit translated by Elisa Amado

"A beautiful, simple, deep book about how accepting others 

can enrich us all."

The chickens are happy on the farm. Daily life is predicable and safe until ...  It is hunting season and a group of large capybaras need to find somewhere safe to live until the hunters leave. The chickens do not want these strangers to move in to their home. 

"There were lots of them, they were hairy, they were wet, they were too big. NO! There was no room for them."

The capybaras explain their perilous situation so the chickens do decide they can stay IF they follow the rules:

1. Don't make any noise
2. Don't come out of the water
3. Don't come near the food
4. Don't question the rules

The chickens do not predict, however, that their youngest chick and the youngest capybara will not follow the rules and that they become friends but this is a lucky thing because one night the vicious hunting dog arrives and the life of the little chick is threatened. When the dog is confronted by the group of huge capybaras the crisis is averted.

"Then everything changed." 

Originally published in Venezuela, this picture book is simple and fun enough for preschoolers, but could definitely be used to start some interesting conversations with older ones. The disconnect between the text and the illustrations questions the meaning of such words as “comfortable” and “dangerous”. Delightfully subversive. Kids Book a Day

This book was originally published in 2020 with the Spanish title Los Corpinchos. If you are teaching visual literacy with a group of older students or talking about book design this book would make an excellent text. The illustrations are black, white and brown with touches of red. On the page where the chickens explain "nothing out of the ordinary every happened" you need to take a close look at the farmer as he walks away from the chicken hutch. And the final page in this book has no words but is is clearly the beginning of another huge conversation between the farm animals and the capybaras. 

On its surface, Soderguit’s beguiling picture book offers a direct-enough message: find community in embracing others—even those that seem unfamiliar at first. Yet moments pop up where text and pictures seem at intentional odds, inviting readers to consider a deeper plunge. Aided by an ingenious use of the book’s gutter, the sparse text and wordless segments make this tale an unusually meditative piece of work. Similarly, the artwork shuns colour for the most part, evoking a muted spirit of optimism.  Purely exquisite. Kirkus Star review

Profound and remarkable. Waking Brain Cells

The Capbaras is published by Greystone Kids in Vancouver, Canada and it is an Aldana Libros book: Aldana Libros is an imprint of Greystone Kids that was developed by renowned children’s publisher Patricia Aldana to bring outstanding books to the English-speaking market, by international authors and illustrators who want to communicate their own cultural realities.    

I suggest this book would be an excellent one to purchase for your school library and I am so pleased it has a reasonable price at around $25 for the hardcover. If you speak Spanish take a look at this video and if you don't speak Spanish take a look to see inside this book. And here is another reading on vimeo. Read more about this production here. 

The Hans Christian Andersen nominee Ivar Da Coll from Colombia and Venezuela also has a series of picture books featuring a capybara character called Chigüiro and you can read more about Capybaras in this non fiction book:

We have a new picture book here in Australia - Egg by Claire Atkins published by University of Queensland Press - and this book would be the perfect book to read alongside The Capybaras. 

Read a review of Egg in Reading Time. And this piece from Paperbark Words and Joy Lawn. 

Alfredo Soderguit has illustrated over forty book. The Capybaras is the second book he has written and illustrated. I love seeing books from around the world. Here is the German edition of The Capybaras:

Subway Sparrow by Leyla Torres

This is an obscure old (1997) book but the art is so brilliant I just needed to share it here. I am amazed to discover it might still be available.

"Moja apaszka'. 'Yeah, cover him with the scarf!' 'Si Cubramoslo'. 'Hurry, I'll pick him up."

A young girl is sitting in the subway train when a small sparrow flies in the door. In the carriage there is a man who speaks Spanish and a lady who speaks Polish. Somehow the girl, who only speaks English, needs to ask these people to help her catch the bird, gently, and then carry it off the train and set it free.

There is no translation of the dialogue in Spanish and Polish but somehow it is easy to understand that everyone has a common goal of helping this small, helpless bird, to escape from the train, to find freedom and blue skies.

Torres's first picture book ...  is a charming multicultural vignette. Kirkus

I am not going to say this is an essential purchase for a library or home collection but if you do stumble upon this book, as I did, I am certain you will enjoy the gentle story which captures a tiny moment in time and the small but important actions of a group of people on a train. The tiny moment in time idea reminds me of the special books by Bob Graham such as Silver Buttons; How the Sun got to Coco's House; Vanilla Icecream; and Home in the Rain. Here is a video of the whole book. Take a look so you can see the fabulous illustration of shoes worn by a boy on the train. 

I have read a few other books about subways recently:

I am the Subway

The man with the Violin

Milo Imagines the World

IBBY Honour list 2018

Here are some other books by Leyla Torres:

Evelyn del Rey is Moving Away by Meg Medina illustrated by Sonia Sánchez

Perhaps the title tells you all you need to know about this book? No, there is so much more to this story. Evelyn de Rey is Daniela's best friend, her best friend in the whole wide world. And now she is moving away. These two friends have lived next door to each other for ever! They play together, they visit each others apartments, and they have years of shared memories. Even though Evelyn does move away, Daniela knows this is a friendship that will last forever.

"I know she will always be my first mejor amiga, my número uno best friend."

Take a look at this book trailer for Elevlyn de Rey is Moving Away. I am sure it will convince you that this book is one you will want to add to your library. The Autumn setting is also perfect for a book which explores the idea of change. 

I have a Pinterest collection of picture books about moving to a new house. The most obvious book to pair with Evelyn del Rey is moving away would be Amy and Louis by Libby Gleeson.

You can see other books by Newbery medalist Meg Medina here. Here are some other books illustrated by Spanish illustrator Sonia Sanchez. Her art style is 'scrumptious'. 

Anita and the Dragons by Hannah Carmona illustrated by Anna Cunha

Anita lives on the island of Hispanola in the Dominican Republic. Hispanola is one of only two Caribbean islands that share two sovereign states. The other part of this island is Haiti which is a nation that has sadly been in the news this week.

Anita has a wonderful imagination. She fancies her home is a palace and she, herself, is a real princess. When aeroplanes fly overhead she sees dragons. Her family have made a plan to migrate - we are not told where they will go but in the new place, her mother explains, there will be hot water and a dryer along with a reliable supply of electricity. These tiny fragments of information show that life in the Dominican Republic has had some hardships even though this tropical island does look idyllic. It is also clear in the new place there will also be better opportunities for the children. Sadly Anita's grandmother cannot join them on this journey. It makes Anita so sad to leave her beloved Abuela behind.

As Anita steps toward the plane she says:

"I breathe in the sea salt-drenched air deeply. I send a silent message to my island. A message filled with mango-sweet kisses; black stormy nights; glassy, blue waves; spicy, hot heat-and-sandy, snug hugs. I will see you again."

A gorgeous story about the love of one’s homeland and the courage it takes to emigrate. Kirkus

The most beautiful quality of this story is the balance between the heaviness Anita begins to feel but the softness of the illustrations. The illustrations are comforting and are almost whispering to you, everything will be okay. Just Imagine

The artwork, in earth-tones and a combination of mixed media and digital techniques, is warm and abstract, with enough detail so that children will immediately understand that Anita is not really a princess in a castle and that the dragons are, in fact, airplanes.  Youth Services Book Reviews

Anita and the Dragons was published in 2021. Here is the blurb from Lantana: Anita watches the dragons high above her as she hops from one cement roof to another in her village in the Dominican Republic. But being the valiant princesa she is, she never lets them scare her. Then one day, Anita must face her fears and begin life in a new country. Will she be brave enough to enter the belly of the beast and take flight to new adventures?

Here is an interview discussion between Hannah Carmona and Anna Cunha. Anna is from Brasil and Hannah's mother is from the Dominican Republic. You can see the art from this book on the interview page. In this video Hannah reads her book.

Here are two more books illustrated by Anna Cunha.  Fly will be published in 2022.