Spanish / Colombia
Pequeño náufrago
(Little castaway)
Buitrago, Jairo
(text)
Mayorga, Juan Camilo
(illus.)
Bogotá: Cataplum Libros, 2025. – [44] p.
ISBN 978-628-96020-4-3
Island | Parody | Picture book | Shipwreck | Robinsonade
Reading age: 5+
White Ravens issue: 2025
A boy ends up stranded on an island. Calmly he accepts his fate and quickly settles in. He leads a fairly modest life until an annoying but literature-loving orangutan appears, with whom he must share the island. The boy gives the local creatures and inanimate objects new names because he has gradually forgotten the correct ones, and, with the help of the orangutan, sends out a message in a bottle. There are pirates to whom the ape sells wooden legs and grappling hooks, and yes, there are allegedly even cannibals around. This picture book is a playful riff on Robinson Crusoe. Jairo Buitrago tells the story with a hefty pinch of nonsense, absurd humour and quirky twists. Young readers will enjoy the crazy tale, while adult readers will relish the parodic allusions to the famous literary original and the way stereotypes are both referenced and playfully subverted, both in the text and in Juan Camilo Mayorga’s illustrations. »Pequeño náufrago« is simply great fun. [JW]