Postcards

Juan Clemente Gómez Quiquiricosas/Thingummies Illus. Emilio Urberuaga Valencia, Spain: Diálogo, 2008. 38 pp. ISBN: 978-84-96976-08-5 (picture book, poetry, 3+)

Quiquiricosas / Thingummies features ten poems by Juan Clemente Gómez, well-known novelist and teacher, integrated in a lovely picture book with marvelous double-page illustrations. The author draws his inspiration from the rich Castilian oral tradition and from English nonsense verse; he uses patterns from folk nursery rhymes and street games, as well as every poetical figure that can inject musicality into a text for children. The work of top-rated illustrator Emilio Urberuaga is published in over nine countries and regularly appears on the White Ravens list. This time, using a mixed-media technique, he achieves clean luminous brilliant colors that fill all the available space, making the real life and nonsensical or surrealistic characters come to life and emphasizing the fantastic and humorous atmosphere created by the poems. Here is an ideal book for children to hear read aloud in the voices of their loved ones. They will thus discover, even before they can read, the beauty of poetic images and the sonorous power of a sequence of words and rhymes, while they simultaneously enjoy Emilio Urberuaga's eloquent panoramic illustrations.

M^a José Gómez-Navarro

Fran Alonso La araña y yo/The Spider and I Illus. Manuel G. Vicente Sevilla, Spain: Kalandraka Ediciones Andalucía, 2009. 40 pp. ISBN: 978-84-96388-45-1 (picture book, 3+)

Alonso and Vicente have produced a picture book of great artistic beauty. The authors evoke similarities between the shapes and textures of fruit and parts of the human body. They have also created a simple yet daring storyline: a young girl describes the walk a spider takes along the child's body, at the same time initiating a friendship between them. The writing and images radiate gentleness and sensitivity, and they succeed in blending seemingly contrary concepts such as beauty and ugliness. The combination of photography and drawings that illustrate this story help the reader understand the literary and descriptive aspects of the book. The authors, Fran Alonso and Manuel González Vicente, have participated together in several diverse publishing projects. Their pursuits, both literary and graphical, have been cultivated primarily in Galicia. Alonso has won the Blanco Amor Award for writing and Vicente has presented expositions and created monographic works, particularly those related to the Way of St. James.

Alicia Muñoz Álvarez

Vicente Muñoz Puelles Óscar y el río Amazonas / Oscar and the Amazon River Illus. Noemí Villamuza Madrid, Spain: Anaya, 2009. 64 pp. ISBN: 978-84-667-8447-4 (fiction, 6+)

Oscar is learning to read and to swim, and he finds both difficult. This is the story of how he overcomes his difficulties. Reading a book entitled Along the Amazon (which has a picture of a swimming boy pursued by an alligator on the cover), he feels that he has two lives: one as Oscar and another as Henry, the book's hero. This makes him realize that reading and swimming are comparable activities, requiring effort and offering gratification when mastered. This simple and imaginative story is set in the boy's limited world of family and school. The book is a bridge that links Oscar's two worries and helps him feel that the prize will be worth the effort. The boy's feelings are well-portrayed in the tender and forceful illustrations by the young artist Noemí Villamuza. Oscar first appeared in Oscar and the Post Office Lion, which won the National Prize for Literature in 1999.

M^a José Gómez-Navarro

Elia Barceló Futuros peligrosos / Dangerous Futures Zaragoza, Spain: Edelvives, 2008 166 pp. ISBN: 978-84-263-6700-6 (short stories, 14+)

Under a revealing title, this book gathers seven short stories of different genres: fantasy, science fiction, utopian literature, etc. Set in recognizable places for Spanish readers, and in a time very near the present, these stories speak about current subjects of a personal and social nature: the excess of violence and unscrupulous...