Spanish / Venezuela
El día que Baldomero robó el sol
(The day that Baldomero stole the sun)
Granero, Nono
(text/illus.)
Caracas [et al.]: Ediciones Ekaré, 2018. – [30] p.
ISBN 978-84-947431-5-3
Sun | Theft | Solidarity | Picture book
Reading age: 7+
White Ravens issue: 2018
Baldomero is a little man with a devil’s tail impossible to ignore. One day, he commits his greatest misdeed yet: He stuffs the sun into a sack and locks it in a cage under his dining table. Then he observes with satisfaction how the plants begin to wilt, people hunger and despair, the world collapses. Only María, who has never owned anything, is as happy as always. Baldomero at first is very amused watching her beat an egg long enough to cook something good for her siblings. But his laughter fades as the egg foam, thanks to the neighbours’ support, keeps getting bigger, until it floats in the sky as an airy ball that replaces the sun. Nono Granero’s pictures wonderfully capture the Rumpelstiltskin-like malice and the picaresque cunning of the diabolical Baldomero. The original story could certainly be read as a utopian political parable, since people coming together in times of need can ruin the mood of all the Baldomeros of this world.