The importance of knowing the origin and meaning of words, the need to relate to the animal world and learning courage are three of the fundamental issues that this new batch of books for small and young readers deals with.
Moon cake. 48 pages. €16.50 (From 4 years old) You can buy it here.
We should read more poetry to children so that they can enjoy the music of the rhyme and the verse, educate their ears and learn that the word connotes, hides and makes us travel to places we will never set foot on. A good example of this is this collection of poems by Mar Benegas -a veteran children's author- who makes us count from one to 20, or rather, from "smoke to the wind" and gives us a composition for each number and its homophone word.
Thus we will know about the Gatotigato that it was only "the name of a doodle" or about the "walnut tree, the wave and the toga" that play at combining themselves in each stanza with "the nut, the fish and the judge" until they provoke laughter. The bream and the squid walk through the pages when they leave the sea to cross the city and creatures as funny as the English-speaking crab or Pinocchio himself.
A book full of charm that closes involving the reader "Come with me, let's play I tell you!" and reveals the intimate link between the poetic and the playful. Undoubtedly, the illustrations by María Ramos capture the playful essence of Benegas and help us to reconstruct this fun poetic universe.
Red Fox Books. 32 pages. €13.90 (From 7 years old) You can buy it here.
Libros del Zorro Rojo rescues this emblematic title from its catalog and shows us the most evocative Neruda under the highly personal graphic gaze of Elena Odriozola. An album that introduces the little reader to the beauty of poetry and helps him to educate his aesthetic sense.
Faced with the darkness of the night, a man climbs to the top of a skyscraper and, in love with its light, steals a star. As if he were carrying "an archangel's sword in his belt," the character advances through the streets and even hides it under his bed so that no one discovers it. But such is the strength of her wake that Odriozola's drawings show us the halo that she leaves in her wake like one that catches the traces of a dream. He tries in vain to hide it and can no longer take care of the daily tasks because the star lives and focuses the attention of all passers-by.
The word is allied with the image to show the contrast between the mediocrity of the urban world and the need to dream that the star represents. A pulse that can only relax the return of the star towards the natural world to which it belongs.
Ekaré. 40 pages. €19.80 (From 7 years old) You can buy it here.
Ancient explorers had to draw on familiar references when describing the new creatures they found in distant lands. One only has to read the chroniclers of the Indies to marvel at the bestiaries described in their travel accounts that illustrators later had to recreate with their imagination. The platypus, for example, was the size of a cat, laid eggs like a chicken, and swam like a fish.
This is how this ingenious informative album was born in which the reader is challenged so that, on each double page, they can reconstruct an animal from certain fragmentary elements and a clue about the hidden identity. What animal could we compose with two oars, 300 kilos of fat, a thermal suit and a set of knives? One who can smell his dinner a mile away.
And which one would we rebuild from a noose, a bike horn, two marbles, a flashlight and a briefcase? One that roars like a car engine. The polar bear, the bullfrog, the albatross and many other creatures hide behind each flap in which we will discover some curiosities of each species.
YE. 144 pages. €12.95 (From 7 years old) You can buy it here.
Super Kid hates being called Nacho because he is a hero with countless missions to face in his day to day. From the maternal order to go down for bread daily, which he forces her to jump on a very high tower of mattresses, to save the Prehistory-Landia theme park taken over by rabid mammoths and robotic tigers that have the place full of hostages.
Despite the mistrust of the police chief, the mayor's faith in her professionalism is unwavering. For this reason, she infiltrates the park together with the engineer Palomo to face the robotic cavemen and rescue the prisoners who are on the other side of the lava volcano. In the trance, she will have to face the boycott attempts from the control room and will have the invaluable help of Gema, a girl camouflaged among the rebels who will become her best ally.
A comic that draws humor both in the graphic part -our proud protagonist is a scrawny hero with the air of a puppet- as well as in the language and in the development of the plot, which sometimes goes from the adventurous to the charmingly disastrous.
Blackie Books. 88 pages. €17.90 (From 8 years old) You can buy it here.
Susie Morgenstern won the sympathy of many children with this beautiful story published in 1996, which is now presented to us in comic format thanks to the intelligent look of Thomas Baas.
Living with a depressed grandmother rooted in the dead she lost in the Great War, Ernst's gray existence is turned upside down when Victoria arrives at school. A talkative girl with 12 siblings and a chaotic family that takes the little one out of her monotonous reality. The boy is weighed down by the absence of his father and the silences of his grandmother when he tries to find out the reason for this abandonment. For this reason, when he sees a writer who bears his last name on TV, he manages to send him a letter telling him his story and asking him if he had a son 10 years ago.
The classic vignettes and echoes of Sempé capture the sensitivity of the story and show us the emotion of the child when he receives a box full of letters that his father has been writing to him throughout all these years. A comic that moves young and old alike and that, despite the ups and downs, closes with an ending full of hope.
Bamboo. 120 pages. €9.50 (From 9 years old) You can buy it here.
Marcelo is nine years old and is the grandson of Ascensión, one of the most recognized detectives of the Coscorrón Agency who always cries with her favorite serial, is deaf as a wall and is an expert in dominoes.
Since his mother died, the boy lives with his grandmother and his aunts. Three salty old ladies who have as much art to sneak into the butcher shop as to solve important mysteries with the help of the boy. The baton to herd criminals, the faux fur coat that can knock you out. due to suffocation or anesthetic perfume are some of their secret weapons that, on this occasion, they will have to deploy in Egypt. Although the plan was to go on vacation, they will go from plowing the waters of the Nile on a cheap cruise to having to fight against some criminals who intend to loot the tomb of Pharaoh Aescondidas IV.
The cartoonish illustrations are in tune with the hooligan tone of the protagonists in the new installment of these very unique detectives who give voice to the elderly, at the same time that they underline their special connection with the world of children.
Kalandraka. 72 pages. €14 (From 11 years old) You can buy it here.
María Moliner worked with something as immaterial and alive as words. That is why this illustrated biography moves us so much that at times reaches the poetic and structures the life of the lexicographer around 10 terms. From "breastfeeding" that she takes us back to her childhood in a town in Zaragoza where a dry wind was blowing that forged her character, to "teaching" that she refers to her academic training at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza.
María is getting stronger and studies History at the same time that she collects index cards for a dictionary. Her absolute faith in the power of education led her to be the first professor at the University of Murcia and to the precious work of the educational missions that built rural libraries in the hardest-hit regions of Spain. She lives through the harshness of the Civil War and the internal exile of the postwar period, but without a doubt, her greatest achievement will come with the preparation of the Dictionary of Spanish Use, which compiled the meaning, origin, and semantic field of each word.
Sixteen years of solo work that resulted in this monumental work whose legacy continues to enrich each new generation.
Errata Nature. 320 pages. €21 (From 12 years old) You can buy it here.
When a frightened girl is found in the middle of the forest, Zima hesitates whether to attack or retreat. She knows very well that the pack's motto is to kill every human that crosses its path, but the creature smiles at her and doesn't feel her as a threat. The forest has long become an inhospitable land for wolves who are torn between fear of the witch Baba Yagá and the danger of hunters.
What he cannot even imagine is that the tsar intends to organize a great hunt and destroy those places by setting them on fire. Everything gets complicated when, one fine day, Zima is trapped in the figure of the sorceress because of a spell, and the girl from the forest knocks on her door to stop the king's ruthless plans.
The debut of American author Karah Sutton reveals her passion for traditional Russian folklore while turning on the commonly negative roles of the wolf or the witch. A novel that combines magic with adventure and teaches us that there is no healthier exercise than getting into the skin of others.
XX Anaya Prize. 248 pages €12.95 (From 14 years old) You can buy it here.
The eventful existence of Miguel de Cervantes gives for more than one book. This is how the authors awarded the Anaya Prize have appreciated it when they recreated, based on certain historical data, the fictionalized biography of the one-armed man from Lepanto. Like the found manuscript of Don Quixote, an anonymous shipment arrives at the Rebeca Longinos publishing house with an original from the 17th century.
The surprise is huge when he finds the narration of a certain Sancho about the life of his friend Alonso, a native of Argamasilla de Alba. The text goes from the enthusiasm of the young Alonso when Cervantes arrives in town to be tried for some corruption, to the visit of the youngsters to the dungeon where the writer tells them out loud about his participation in the battle of Lepanto. As a good storyteller, Cervantes traps the boys with the misadventures of his years as a soldier in Italy and the subsequent captivity in Algiers. There will take place the meeting with Dulcinea, princess of Barbary and feminine counterpoint.
A successful adventure novel in which both humor and Cervantes winks shine and the narrative tension is maintained to make the reader vibrate.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
