Spanish / Mexico
El bolso
(The bag)
Ferrada, María José
(text)
Palmero Cáceres, Ana
(illus.)
[Ciudad de México]: Alboroto Ediciones, 2021. – [28] p.
ISBN 978-607-99277-4-5
Bag | Braille | Picture book
Reading age: 4+
White Ravens issue: 2021
In many of her books, María José Ferrada achieves an artlessly assured balance between prose and poetry. Her texts live in the natural, incidental flow of words and sentences, while artfully compacting language, giving it a lyrical, rhythmic tone. The boundary between reality and imagination dissolves, too – as happens here, with “my Mum’s” bag that “everything fits into”. This everyday object becomes a magical place that has the potential of carrying everything in it: a cell phone and keys lie next to “three flower blossoms from last spring”, a cat the size of a coin, and a train ticket along with the train and its passengers. The inventive illustrations by Ana Palmero Cáceres are also delightful, as they gracefully play with geometric shapes and ornaments. The show-stopper in this elaborately designed and produced book is that the text (in print and Braille type) and illustrations (partly in relief) can be read and observed with both the eyes and the fingers. [JW]