Greek / Greece
Amália
Papatheodulu, Antōnēs
(Papatheodoulou, Antonis)
(text)
Stamatiadē, Ntaniela
(Stamatiadi, Daniela)
(illus.)
Athēna: Ikaros, 2019. – [36] p.
ISBN 978-960-572-302-6
Market | Song | Joy of living | Self-assertion | Rodrigues, Amália | Picture book
Reading age: 3+
White Ravens issue: 2020
In her red dress, little Amália forges through the lively crowds of a market. She carefully holds a lemon in her hand, which she soon begins to advertise in song. People marvel, the fruit is soon sold, and it doesn’t take long until the astonished traders are also enthusiastic and start to sing out their wares, too, in an endearing cacophony. Echoing the life of Portuguese singer Amália Rodrigues, who as a girl did in fact sell fruit using song, Antonis Papatheodoulou describes a child who asserts herself in creative and inspiring fashion. The story is staged by Daniela Stamatiadi’s illustrations, which open with a lemon tree and end with a pear, which Amália bought from her earnings and appreciatively devours. The pictures reveal three parallel plots, linked by Amália who ambles through all of them with glee. “Amália” received the 2020 Picture Book Award of the magazine “O anagnostis”. [TA]