Spanish / Argentina
Canción de las preguntas
(Song of questions)
Tallón, José Sebastián
(text)
Elías, Pablo I.
(illus.)
Buenos Aires: Pequeño Editor, [2024]. – [24] p.
(Series: Panzada de letras)
ISBN 978-987-791-102-2
Life | Existence | Question | Poetry | Picture book
Reading age: 5+
White Ravens issue: 2024
José Sebastián Tallón (1904-1954) is considered the first Argentine poet to write for children. This prose poem is taken from his book »Las torres de Nuremberg« (The towers of Nuremberg), first published in 1927. In 40 verses, the lyrical subject – a child or perhaps the author himself – poses 18 profound and surprising questions based on their own experience and observations of the immediate surroundings. They are about thinking, dreaming, remembering, and things that seem familiar and yet mysterious. »Why can’t I remember the moment at which I fall asleep?« »At what altitude does the sky begin?« »Who knows when, where and how the 32 grandparents of their eight great-grandparents lived?« It is a stroke of luck that these timeless, sparkling gems of literature have been brought back to light in this picture book edition. Pablo I. Elías’s cheerful colour illustrations depict anthropomorphic animals populating a small town that evokes life in rural Argentina when the poem was written nearly 100 years ago. [JW]