The White Ravens Database

Presented by   Internationale Jugendbibliothek / International Youth Library

Spanish / Spain

La belleza del final

(The beauty of the end)

Colella, Alfredo (text)
González, Jorge (illus.)
Gómez Navarro, Héctor (transl.)
[Mataró, Barcelona]: A buen paso, [2020]. – [48] p.
ISBN 978-84-1755529-0

End  | Finiteness  | Transience  | Meaning of life  | Picture book

Reading age: 6+

White Ravens issue: 2021

OPAC

Even the life of a 100-year-old tortoise named Nina is finite. Restive and curious, she heads out on the last leg of her long journey to understand what “the end” means. She receives many answers to this seemingly simple question. The end is waning food supplies, says the ant. The caterpillar meanwhile longs for the end as it brings a new beginning. For a swallow, the end is the right moment to change direction. Or, as the snake explains, the end is part of a circle and thus always also a beginning, because circles never end. The episodes in this picture book are pearls, describing Nina’s encounters with other animals that cause her as well as readers to reflect. The striking pictures are also wonderful. In them, the flowing shapes and colours of the dense forest proliferate – mossy green, warm, earthy brown, flaming red, radiant sky blue, stony grey. Darkness gradually seeps in, announcing the end. [JW]