Seven Pablos

author: Jorge Luján 

translator (English): Mara Faye Lethem 

illustrator: Chiara Carrer 

Enchanted Lion Books, 2018

all grades 

Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean, Ecuadoran, Guyanese, Mexican, Peruvian

Dedicated to “the children of the world,” Lujän, Letham and Carrer gift us with seven evocative vignettes written in the third person narrative voice, each about a young boy named “Pablo,” each from a different country in the colonial world. Each Pablo has a story, and here, young readers will get a glimpse of their lives.

Seven Pablos is not something that youngsters will pick up and quickly put down. An oversize clothbound book with a black spine, it’s unusually heavy for a picture book—in content, design and actual weight—and will slow down readers as they absorb what’s happening in and around the lives of these children. 

Rendered in graphite pencil on a dark, somber palette with occasional spot colors of yellows and reds, some of Carrer’s drawings may appear to have been hurriedly drawn and colored in by children—perhaps by the Pablos themselves. But young children don’t often portray the depth of expressions or emotions seen here.

“Pablo is eight years old and lives in Chile.” His father labors in a copper mine and, when he comes home, he quickly eats and falls into bed. Pablo softly puts his hand on his sleeping father’s chest, and “it feels like he’s touching the center of the earth.” On the left side of the double-page spread, readers will see two run-down, tin-roofed houses in the precariously built shantytown where this impoverished family lives. 

“There is also a Pablo living in Ecuador,” deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle, where his mother ekes out a living by picking and selling fruit. One day, they meet a group of traveling musicians, adding their songs to the trills of the jungle. Pablo’s mother runs after them to share an orange, and mother and son call out, “Don’t forget us!”

“Pablo is an Argentine boy who lives in Mexico.” His eyes show his sadness as he thinks of all his friends and relatives who have been taken away by the military dictatorship from which he and his family have escaped.

In school, Pablo attends a poetry workshop, and he has written this:

Stiff and cold, the soldiers march,

crushing the roofs

with their enormous boots.

The full-bleed, double-page spread that follows depicts the faceless, booted soldiers, standing stiffly in line, their arms pressed to their sides. Except for their hands, the entire spread is dark gray. Connecting with the text and Pablo’s poem on the previous page, readers will recognize what this horrifying spread represents.

Another Pablo, from Guyana and living in New York, confides in a guest poet that, when he grows up, he wants to be “a big guy in a uniform” so that he can “beat people up and get away with it.” After the poet quietly encourages Pablo to write down and draw his fantasy, the poet asks him if he would like someone to get away with doing that to him. And, “a few moments later, Pablo picks up the sheet of paper and rips it again and again and again.”

Pablo, the son of a teacher, lives in Peru. He thinks of his godfather, Frejolito, who used to be the mayor of Lima and would give cups of milk to all the poor children. Everyone remembers him, and Pablo thinks of how things might have been different if he had become president.

“Pablo also scavenges in a favela in Rio de Janeiro,” picking through an enormous garbage dump with other children, looking for things to sell. Each child is weighed down by a large canvas bag, filled with junk, hung over one shoulder. When a well-dressed journalist from the city (who carries an oversize leather envelope bag hung over her shoulder) asks him what he’s doing in the garbage and why he doesn’t go to school, he’s embarrassed and confused because she doesn’t seem to understand what’s obvious to him. 

Riding on the top of a speeding train with hundreds of other desperate refugees, another Pablo, who was born in Chiapas, is on the way to the US border. This is his third try; the other times, he was grabbed by the border patrol and sent back. This time, he wears his mother’s wedding ring around his neck. (These trains are collectively known as “La Bestia,” the Death Train, and travelers weigh the chances of arriving alive against being killed or maimed by accident or murder. Pablo carries his mother’s wedding ring in case he has to pay a gangster for protection.)

As each vignette ends, readers move on to the next while at the same time looking back. Luján relates the stories of the Pablos with care and respect for them and the young readers as well. He does not tell complete stories here because there are no easy answers; rather, he leaves room for child readers to search further and think deeply about the world’s children; the harrowing social, political and economic situations that confront them—and what we can all do to become part of the solution.

“There are many Pablos in the world,” Luján writes, “yet they are all one. Inside of each is a heart that beats and with the same rhythm as the ocean’s waves and the rotations of the planet.”

On the cover, Carrer has painted five smiling children, joining hands in a circle dance. And on the final spread, her evocative art shows 11 children, virtually bathed in yellow, some smiling, all looking directly at the reader, as if to say: “Here we are. Don’t forget us.”

Seven Pablos is complex and hard-hitting, yet at a child’s level of understanding and empathy. Luján, Carrer and Lethem are speaking truths to children about poverty, racism, militarism—and privilege—so that children can speak truths about power. 

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections. 

—Beverly Slapin

(published 9/8/19)

Head of the Saint

author: Socorro Acioli 

translator: Daniel Hahn 

Delacorte, 2016 

grades 7-up 

Brazilian

Translated fiction for teen readers is not easy to find. Despite the recent success of adult titles by Elena Ferrante, Steig Larsson, Roberto Bolaño, Haruki Murikami, and others, and the growing number of acclaimed picture books from other countries, middle grade and young adult novels in translation haven’t yet received their due. This oversight is particularly troubling given that most high school social studies curricula feature a year or two of global studies, any person who isn’t Indigenous to this land has roots in another country, and many teens travel or study abroad in high school or college. A mandatory 100-level college course should not be someone’s first exposure to international literature.

So I was thrilled to see a major house publish Brazilian YA author Socorro Acioli’s novel, The Head of the Saint, translated by Daniel Hahn. (The book, with Hahn’s translation, was first published in the UK in 2014; as a recent article in The Guardian points out, translations now sell better in the UK than do literary novels in English.)

The Head of the Saint begins with 15-year-old Samuel’s long and exhausting pilgrimage from his hometown in northeastern Brazil, where his mother has just died, to the town of Candeia, where his father and grandmother supposedly live. He travels in pursuit of three tasks his mother assigned him on her deathbed. But Candeia is a cursed town, ever since the residents attempted to build a statue to their patron saint, Saint Anthony, and because of a construction error the head could not be attached to the body. Samuel’s grandmother chases him from her home and tells him to hide out in the head. There, he meets 13-year-old Francisco, sneaking away to read pornographic magazines. He blackmails Francisco into helping him, and the two become friends and collaborators in an enterprise to revive the town.

While living in the head, Samuel hears voices—a woman singing, women praying to find love. He and Francisco set up a meeting between one young woman and the local doctor that leads to marriage, and then scores of desperate women arrive in Candeia looking for similar magic. The town begins to recover, but secrets are revealed that put Samuel in mortal danger. His promise to his mother involves even more danger, but it may also be the thing that saves him.

Readers and writers of magic realism will find inspiration in this exemplary work by Acioli, who wrote The Head of the Saint under the mentorship of Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. Translator Hahn captures the lyrical, dreamlike omniscient narrative (though mostly focused on Samuel), and readers of the US edition will not suspect that he is British or that the novel was first published in the UK. As in other magic realist fiction from Latin America, Acioli explores the official corruption and repression, environmental degradation, and individual malice—things that appear unbelievable but regularly happen in countries and communities all over the world.

Acioli’s vivid descriptions bring to life the lush vegetation invading the ruined community, the crumbling mansions of a once-prosperous town, the remaining young residents clinging to life and hope in the face of death. Brazil’s complex ethnic heritages and religious traditions, intertwined with those of Portugal and Cape Verde, are central to the story as well. Acioli weaves all these themes and motifs into an organic whole, showing us that those who know a place best are the ones who live there.

At first, some readers may find it difficult to figure out the strange relationships weaving in and out and all around, as well as the symbolism and significance of the statue itself and in particular, the head. But when everything comes together—as it does—the message is satisfying and real. Without giving away the ending, let me say that everything somehow involves “courage,” “forgiveness,” and “love,” which Samuel ultimately comes to understand.

Head of the Saint is highly recommended.

—Lyn Miller-Lachmann

(published 9/6/16)

This review, in a slightly different form, first appeared in The Pirate Tree (thepiratetree.com). We thank The Pirate Tree for permission.

Tales of the Amazon: How the Munduruku Indians Live

author: Daniel Munduruku (Daniel Monteiro Costa)

translator (from the Portuguese): Jane Springer

illustrator: Laurabeatriz

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press, 1996

grades 3-up 

Munduruku, Brazilian 

On the cover we see a young Munduruku boy, secure in his Amazon rainforest home, clearly a part of his Indigenous world. He knows what he comes from and his smiling, confident expression—along with the monkey comfortably perched on his head—invite the young reader to visit.

Tales of the Amazon: How the Munduruku Indians Live is divided into three parts—each told differently, and each related to the others.

In Part 1, “The Tale of the Boy Who Didn’t Know How to Dream,” the pajé (healer) names an infant boy Kaxi—“the moon that shines on humanity,” and will groom him to be the healer and spiritual guide to his people. In his training, Kaxi learns to “listen to the voices of our ancestors who speak to us in dreams.” He also learns about the importance of the struggle against outsiders who are damaging the rainforest. Finally, through a prophetic dream he learns how to “guide his people toward their future.” Young readers might giggle at the illustrations of people without clothes on; this could be an opportunity for teachers to challenge all kinds of assumptions.

Part 2, “The Indigenous Peoples of Brazil,” reads like a textbook. Short sections include, among others, “Indigenous Lands,” “Linguistic Diversity,” “Cultural Diversity,” “Marriage,” “Music,” “Work,” “Political Organization,” and “Indigenous Rights.” This material is by no means a thorough exploration of any of these issues. But since students at the 6^th-grade level (and even below) are especially interested in non-fiction about how people live, these sections can be used as a starting point for student research.

Part 3, “Chronicles and Testimonies,” are brief stories about Munduruku’s life, most of it away from his people. Our favorites include Munduruku’s listening to his grandfather’s stories and knowing that “those ancient myths say what cannot be said”; witnessing a debate between a Christian pastor and a young Guarani man about the nature of God; overhearing two women on a train arguing about whether or not he is a “real Indian”; and responding, both to a teacher who asks him what he does with mosquitoes, and to a child who wants to know if Indians eat people.

Portraying the luminous beauty of the Amazon rainforest and the interdependence of the animals and humans who live there, Laurabeatriz’s richly textured, pastel-on-canvas paintings, on a palette of browns, greens and blues, are dramatic and gorgeous.  

Weaknesses in the text include loaded terminology such as “hut,” “brave,” “warrior,“ “fire water,” and “hostile.” This may have been a function of the translation from the Portuguese. And the suggestions for further reading are dated and unhelpful.

But for the most part, Tales of the Amazon is engagingly written, beautifully illustrated and nicely designed, with lots of information that will resonate with young students and lead them to further research. Recommended.

—Beverly Slapin and María Cárdenas

(published 3/11/14)

Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest

 

author: Lynne Cherry

illustrator: Lynne Cherry

Scholastic, 1990

preschool-grade 3

Brazilian

The world’s tropical rainforests are being destroyed at an alarming rate by multinational corporations, deforestation operations, road paving, cattle ranching, and, in Central and South America, the runaway eco-tourism industry. 

All of this is implied in Cherry’s myth-like tale of a lone woodsman who is assigned to chop down a huge kapok tree in the forest. After a few whacks, he sits down to rest and is lulled to sleep by the “heat and hum of the forest.” While asleep, the woodsman is visited by creatures who live in the forest—a boa constrictor, a bee, a troop of monkeys, a toucan, a macaw, a tree frog, a jaguar, four tree porcupines, “several anteaters,” and a three-toed sloth—who each tells him how this tree and everything in the forest is intricately related to each other. 

And finally, “a child from the Yanomamo tribe who lived in the rain forest” joins the creatures and whispers into the man’s ear, “Senhor, when you awake, please look upon us all with new eyes.”

The woodsman awakes with a start.

Before him stood the rain forest child, and all around him, staring, were the creatures who depended upon the great Kapok tree. What wondrous and rare animals they were!

He takes in everything: the “sun streaming through the canopy,” the “fragrant perfume” of the flowers, the “steamy mist rising from the forest floor,” and he knows he must make a decision.

The man stood and picked up his axe. He swung back his arm as though to strike the tree. Suddenly he stopped. He turned and looked at the animals and the child. He hesitated. Then he dropped the ax and walked out of the rainforest.

In The Great Kapok Tree, Cherry has produced an abundance of information about the flora and fauna of the rain forest, and about the necessity of preserving it. Her gorgeously rendered double-page spreads, in watercolors and colored pencils—on a palette of subdued earthy forest tones of mostly browns, greens and reds—aptly convey the beauty of the endangered rainforest ecosystems. And there’s a helpful world map that shows both the rainforests’ original extent and how much of them is left today.

However, two things trouble me about this story. One is that children might see the struggle to save the rainforests as merely about convincing individuals not to chop down trees—rather than about stopping the multinational corporations intent on chopping up the magnificent biospheres into marketable pieces. The second problem is that Cherry apparently drops in the “child from the Yanomamo tribe” to illustrate how the destruction of the rainforests affects humans as well as the forest creatures. But it’s unlikely—even in a myth—for a young child to be hanging around with a bunch of wild animals. It weakens, rather than strengthens, the story.

Lynne Cherry dedicated this book to Chico Mendes, a third-generation Brazilian rubber tapper, human rights activist and trade union leader who was assassinated by a rancher who would have profited from logging an area that had been planned as a reserve.

Rather than the tale of the rainforest’s being threatened by a single man with an ax who is then easily convinced to walk away, I would rather have seen a children’s version about how the Indigenous peoples of Brazil, together with local trade union activists and supporters around the world, are fighting to preserve the Amazon rainforest. Even the youngest children are capable of understanding the complexities of problems such as this one—and thinking about solutions.

So—but only as a jumping-off point for classroom discussions, research and activities about the struggle to save the world’s rainforests—The Great Kapok Tree is recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 5/23/13)