Catalan / Spain
La carta
(The letter)
Rimbau, Roser
(text)
Araya, Rocío
(illus.)
Barcelona: Takatuka, 2018. – [36] p.
ISBN 978-84-17383-07-7
Village | Home | Son | Father | Drawing | Letter | Picture book
Reading age: 5+
White Ravens issue: 2018
A piece of paper coincidentally blown in by the wind gives Moussa the idea to draw his father a picture. His father lives and works in another country, so the boy wants to help him remember the familiar aspects of life in the village. Easier said than done! How can he draw the “Pim Pam!” that’s heard when couscous is being mashed, or the squeaking “Nyic Nyic!” of the well winch? And what about the taste of the hot pepper his father loves? Moussa would have so much to tell, but how can a whole village fit onto a single sheet of paper?! Fortunately, Moussa’s friend Mariama has an idea. She paints a picture of Moussa that will surely please his father. Rocío Araya’s original pictures accompany this story about proximity and distance, the familiar and the foreign. She seamlessly integrates cut-outs from drawings that children in a Senegalese village made into her brightly coloured illustrations.