SATA
ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: NOSOTROS MEANS US
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: palomavaldivia.blogspot.com/
CITY: Santiago
STATE:
COUNTRY: Chile
NATIONALITY: Chilean
LAST VOLUME: SATA 270
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1978, in Chile.
EDUCATION:Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile, studied design; Eina School of Art and Design, Barcelona, Spain, master’s in Creative Illustration.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Children’s book author and illustrator. Former lecturer at the Catholic University of Chile,
AVOCATIONS:Writing, drawing, and riding a bicycle.
AWARDS:Recipient of BIB PLAQUE of the XVIII Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava (Slovakia); Best Designed Book of the Year, by Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission (the German Commission for UNESCO – 2014); the Santiago Municipal Literature Award (Chile) as well as the Little Bird Award (USA) and the Medalla Colibrí (Hummingbird Medal) IBBY Chile.
WRITINGS
Valdivia’s work has been translated into twelve languages.
SIDELIGHTS
Chilean author and illustrator of children’s books Paloma Valdivia earned degrees in art and illustration both in her native Chile and in Spain. She is the author/illustrator or illustrator of more than thirty picture books, and her works have been translated into a dozen languages.
In an interview on the Kolibrí Festival website, Valdivia remarked on her journey creating picture books: “[D]rawing and storytelling fascinate me, but what I truly find most enchanting is childhood, the one children are living today and our own, long-past ones.” Valdivia further remarked on the evolution of her work in an online Let’s Talk Picture Books interview: “Over the years my work has changed a lot. I am not a good natural illustrator. I think what I like the most is telling stories and conceptualizing them. I like to represent abstract concepts in a very simple way, that’s my game.”
In her 2012 self-illustrated book, Up Above and Down Below, Valdivia looks at a rather sophisticated philosophical question regarding differences and similarities among different people. Valdivia employs shorts sentences and surreal illustrations to bring young readers into a world that is divided into two kinds of people: those on the top who think that those on the bottom are very different, and those on the bottom who think the same of those on the top. This paradigm can also stand for those living in the northern hemisphere and those in the southern. So the author poses a simple question: what if the world is turned upside-down? Would people then perhaps find more similarities than differences in each other?
Reviewing Up Above and Down Below in School Library Journal, Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova called the book a “prompt to embrace everybody’s similarities and differences, and to look at the world from another’s perspective” Similarly, a Publishers Weekly contributor dubbed it a “gentle and well-designed introduction to recognizing different points of view” as well as a reminder that “people are the same wherever they live.” Likewise, a Kirkus Reviews critic called the book a “charming, low-key explanation,” and concluded, “A visually stunning, gently restrained picture book that should be high up on readers’ lists.”
Valdivia’s 2017 work, And So It Goes, again takes on a large theme, the cycle of life, from birth to death. But instead using those charged words. Valdivia talks about those who have left and those who have come into our lives. She celebrates the mystery of life, in that no one knows where it comes from or where it is headed. The artwork of animals and humans is done is simple geometric shapes with vibrant colors.
School Library Journal contributor Jody Kopple called this a “charmingly illustrated picture book [that] tackles the very difficult topic of life and death.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer also had praise for And So It Goes, observing: “Valdivia offers a bold and surprisingly lighthearted view of existence.” Likewise, a Kirkus Reviews critic concluded: “A tribute to those who pass, a celebration of time here, and a multilayered rumination on the cycle of life.”
In her 2021 work, Nosotros Means Us = Un Cuento Bilingüe: A Bilingual Story, Valdivia offers a bilingual celenbration of the bond between parent and child. A mother holds her young child as they think about how their love might be expressed if they were different animals. They imagine the mother is a sheep and the child a lamb, or a bear and its cub. Finally they decide that no matter whatever form the pairing takes, they will always be “us.”
A Kirkus Reviews critic called Nosotros Means Us a “simple yet thoughtful presentation of the unquestioning acceptance and loving bond,” as well as a “universal message sweetly and reassuringly expressed.” YA Books Central website reviewer Olivia Farr was also impressed with this work, commenting: “Beautifully illustrated and with a message of love, this bilingual picture book is a fantastic choice for mothers and their little ones to share.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2012, review of Up Above and Down Below; June 15, 2017, review of And So It Goes; May 15, 2021, review of Nosostros Means Us = Un Cuento Bilingüe: A Bilingual Story.
Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2012, review of Up Above and Down Below, p. 95; June 12, 2017, review of And So It Goes, p. 63.
School Library Journal, October, 2012, Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova, review of Up Above and Down Below, p. 108; July, 2017, Jody Kopple, review of And So It Goes, p. 104.
ONLINE
Arte Al Limite, https://www.arteallimite.com/ (March 9, 2016), Ricardo Rojas Behm, author profile.
Kolibrí Festival website, https://www.kolibrifestivaali.org/ (November 11, 2021), author profile.
Let’s Talk Picture Books, http://www.letstalkpicturebooks.com/ (May 18, 2021), author interview.
Paloma Valdivia website, http://palomavaldivia.cl (November 11, 2021).
YA Books Central, https://www.yabookscentral.com/ (May 14, 2021), Olivia Farr, review of Nosotros Means Us.
In Spanish
Paloma Valdivia is a Chilean author/illustrator who studied design at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Chile and has a master’s in Creative Illustration from the Eina School of Art and Design in Barcelona. Her work as an author has been translated into 12 languages. See more of her work at http://palomavaldivia.cl/ or on Instagram and Twitter at @palomavaldivia.
QUOTE: “Over the years my work has changed a lot. I am not a good natural illustrator. I think what I like the most is telling stories and conceptualizing them. I like to represent abstract concepts in a very simple way, that's my game.”
May 18, 2021
Let's Talk Illustrators #178: Paloma Valdivia
After many, many years of admiring Paloma Valdivia's work (check out this post from 2017, but know that my admiration began many years prior!), I finally had a chance to catch Paloma and ask her about her work. Her newest book Nosotros Means Us: Un Cuento Bilingüe is special for many reasons (the illustrations, the story, the message...I could go on), and the fact that it's bilingual makes it all the sweeter. Let's dive in and take a closer look!
About the book:
If I were a sheep, you would be a lamb.
If I were a bear, you would be a cub.
As a mother holds her toddler, they muse over the way their love would translate if they were different animals. But no matter how they change, they will always be "us." This bilingual story is a timeless ode to the unshakable bond between parent and child.
Si yo fuera una oveja, tú serías un cordero.
Si yo fuera una osa, tú serías un osenzo.
Con su niño en brazos, una madre contempla cómo sería elamorentre ellos si fueran diferentes animales. Pero por mucho que cambien, no importa. Siempre serán"nosotros". Este cuento bilingüe es una oda eterna al lazo irrompibleentre madre e hijo.
Let's talk Paloma Valdivia!
LTPB: Where did the idea for Nosotros Means Us: Un Cuento Bilingüe come from? Did you always envision it as a bilingual book?
PV: The idea came from the number of years I spent making my son sleep. I read him many books, I told him a thousand stories, I sang him all the songs I knew, but what worked best for me to relax him was this game of pretending to be someone else. I would say, "If I were a bear," and he would complete by saying, "I would be a little bear," and so the game used to last for a long time in which he began to fall asleep hugging me. Then I had to make time, because if I moved very abruptly or stopped quickly to leave, it meant waking him up and all over again. So I would stay there for a while and think that one day he would grow up and leave the house. And then I started my own game where I thought that one day we would be different. He would grow up, he would become whatever he wanted to be, and for my part I would begin to grow old. There is pain at the departure, but then there are understood, because the puppy has found its way, it is the cycle of life, of nature and when they meet again, when they return home, although they are no longer the same physically, the affection and that forged bond is intact. I think that in some way with my books I always answer something that I do not know, but that I intuit, I give myself a loving explanation to an inexorable fact. It is a story created just before sleeping, there is lucid thinking and something of dreams.
At the beginning I did not imagine the book in bilingual edition, but I love the idea, it is such a universal topic that it seems to me that it can be read in many voices. It is the voice of mothers, regardless of language. This book has been translated into many languages, including French, Italian, Turkish, Hindi, Japanese, English and Spanish.
In general, mothers buy it to read with their children, but it has happened to me a lot that grown-up daughters and sons buy it to gave their mothers. That moves me, because it is a cycle, it works in several generations.
It also happened to me that in Argentina they told me that they use it in a Foundation to support parents of transgender children. They told me that it was very useful to talk about that despite the change we are still the same, loving each other the same.
LTPB: Can you talk a little bit about the visual evolution of the characters? As you got to know them, how did your illustrations evolve? How did you decide what animals they would ultimately become?
PV: It was very entertaining to choose the characters, I read a lot about the names of the babies. In the game with my son we only said the diminutive of the big animal, like little bear, little horse, little rabbit. However, when writing the book, I looked for the true names of each animal's offspring. Some were beautiful, others sounded very bad, for example the son of the rabbit says "gazapo" is an unkind word for a little rabbit, so in that case I kept the diminutive. I looked for aquatic animals, underground, that run and jump. In general, I thought of mammals due to the fact that they were breastfed and raised by their mother and I also wanted them to connect with each other through some detail in the illustration. The bears look at a hole in the ground, then the moles come, the mole has a little bunny in his bed, then the rabbits come. When choosing the different characters, when they separated and changed, I thought of a couple of animals that somehow connect in a symbiotic relationship of mutualism, but those animals were very large or feared, like the hippopotamus and the birds, Needing each other, the bird eats the parasites of the hippopotamus body, he in turn protects it and frees itself from diseases. Or like frogs and tarantulas. So I decided to create a fictional relationship between a deer and a bird. The antlers are like the branches of a tree on which that now little bird can perch. I think that the mother is always present, she is like a small voice that lives forever in our conscience, like a little bird in the branches of a tree.
LTPB: What did you use to create the illustrations in this book? How has your illustration technique changed over the course of your career so far?
PV: This book was illustrated with watercolor, pencil and ink. I illustrate everything by hand many times and then I mount in Photoshop. I come from graphic design, so that's why I put together the illustrations more like posters than paintings. I like to move objects, make them bigger, smaller, change color. I always do many versions of my authored books in general, so it can take me years to make one. I wanted this book to be very clean, with an emphasis on the characters. They go from the mother's chair to the horse meadow or the fish ocean, but one must imagine that because there is no landscape. This is how the game was, imagining a succession of characters that radically change their environment. But that did not matter for the story because everything was also united by the rear of characters that continue one after another as in a post.
Over the years my work has changed a lot. I am not a good natural illustrator, I think what I like the most is telling stories and conceptualizing them. I like to represent abstract concepts in a very simple way, that's my game. My first drawings are rougher and harder, now I see them more delicate and simpler, cleaner. I don't want to show too much, I want to get straight to the point. How to manage to represent a palace in a play with only two chairs on the stage, that is my quest.
On the other hand, I love the work of Art Brut, people who have not studied art but whose desire to paint or draw leads them to use any medium or technique. I find it fascinating what results from this work, like rock art, naïve paintings, or children's drawings. I always want my work to have something of that, but it is very difficult to reach that vision after having studied and seen so many things. Do you know the work of Bill Traylor, Adolf Wölfli, Maude Lewis? There are so many artists with such pure, personal and beautiful visions that there is constant inspiration in them.
LTPB: What are you working on now? Anything you can show us?
PV: I worked a lot in this pandemic time. I am glad that people do not stop reading. Books and art in general have been a refuge, a way to survive the confinement and tedium of the equal days. Right now I am working on a book of poetry by Gabriela Mistral based on lullabies from Latin America for a Brazilian Publishing House in my first solo exhibition at the Museo Palacio La Moneda in Santiago de Chile. Also, together with my partner, we are working on a new collection for my publishing house (www.edicionesliebre.cl), and on my next authored book that is taking shape in my head and in my notebooks. This August though, I illustrated for Enchanted Lion Books, Pablo Neruda's Book of Questions. You can see the artwork below. I worked on it for four years, it took me a lot to conceptualize the poetry without answering the questions. It was a challenge, Claudia Zoe Bedrick is a great editor, and I think she brought out the best in me. I learned and studied a lot, it was like doing a postgraduate degree!
LTPB: If you got the chance to write your own picture book autobiography, who (dead or alive!) would you want to illustrate it, and why?
PV: This is the most entertaining question I've ever had to answer, I've been thinking about it for a week. I narrowed it down to Roald Dahl and Quino, the Argentinian illustrator. And Quino is the chosen one. I imagine my autobiography more in vignettes than in illustrations and without a doubt it is full of moments of black humor and jokes. Quino would illustrate my family very well. I saw their faces when I imagined it. He is able to see the beauty and tragedy of life and represent it with delicate beauty and intelligent humor. Thanks to his books I learned to read and I understood a lot about life. Quino is a school for me, it is part of my childhood. Quino draws the expressions in a superior way. At the end, life is about enjoying it and seeing it with humor because everything passes, this moment will also pass.
A million thanks to Paloma for talking to me about her work! Nosotros Means Us: Un Cuento Bilingüe published last week from Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers!
Paloma Valdivia, abocada a la tarea de soñar
WEDNESDAY MARCH 9TH, 2016 by RICARDO ROJAS BEHM
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She has reviews in The New York Times and has been translated into more than 14 languages. This Chilean illustrator and author is the founder of the Siete Rayas group and reinvents the reality from the Plop! Galería. She has received help from her Héroes Personales, which is a series of original, unique, and personal drawings from the people she admires.
She is emotionally moved and desires to manifest the experiences and sensations that from a very young age established her story. Paloma Valdivia (1978) is a designer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and has a postgraduate study in Illustration at the EINA University of Barcelona. She invites us together with her Héroes Personales to have a dialogue with all that is written, seen, traveled, and sensed through a reflection made by the artist. “It’s not even for others, but to explain to me when I was little,” says the artist.
Fortunately, with that exercise, we are in front of the undeniable acrostic of life and an illustrator that is full of incomplete questions. It’s like bats hanging in the memory until they become colorful characters that, without doubt, exhort the apathy that is established on the books when getting off the ground, revitalizing an old job like printing. This is where both the early intuition and the formidable control of the imaginary join in order to create the daily alphabet of the changeable life. It’s not only limited to a fixed number of characters that are very random like the J of Jack Costeau, K of Miyasaki, L of Laika, P of Picasso, V of Violeta or Z of Zorba. These are renovated as the unknown is solved by the famous illustrator Wolf Erlbruch, who says: “I don’t know the truth, but what I know is that we have to think, search, and let things speak. Not only the living beings but everything.”
Paloma builds a bridge where part of her artworks transit. She starts with this formidable excuse and with a jackal that illuminates the night of the port like a lighthouse that clarifies and greets a job. A job that, though it retakes the classic topics, has allowed her to keep up and have her own version of the Red Riding Hood –written in verse by Gabriela Mistral –in iTunes. Depending on the hour that you open the app, you can see the little Red Riding Hood wearing pajamas and interacting with nocturnal animals.
The way she started her career goes from the digital to the analogous and from the personal to the universal. She began with Kiwala conoce el mar (Amanuta Editorial). Then, her first book appeared: Los de arriba y los de abajo. It was written and illustrated for the Kalandraka Editorial along with Duerme negrito and Es Así for the Fondo de Cultura Económica. Then, the experienced illustrator was chosen for the White Ravens 2013, which is an honorary distinction in relation to children’s and youth literature in the world. Due to this, her work has been translated into more than 14 languages and she has been invited to countless biennales and international fairs (Slovakia, Bologna, Guadalajara). There are publications about her in La Joie de Lire (Switzerland) and Scholastic (USA). She has even worked for the CaixaForum Madrid/ Barcelona and Museo del Prado. Nowadays, she conducts the course of Illustration and Autobiographical narrative at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
She is focused on the duty of dreaming, on leaving behind the solemn and not falling in the speculation or in the occurrence. Her work is full of signification as Hernán Rivera Letelier points out: “Paloma Valdivia clearly expresses that a color is a color and two colors together produce music.” A harmony that is perceived particularly in the way to shape the color not as another member, but rightly as the main character to the service of the illustrated idea. That is a representation that she controls with naturalness and ease because she keeps up her work of being the heroine that is after the conquest of two unexplored worlds. A superlative task where Paloma, like others, has to reinvent herself. As the Spanish illustrator Miguel Gallardo states: “No one from my generation had the idea of working as draftsmen and we could have completely invented that for us.” It is a double-edged weapon that Paloma uses in order to explore the topics that put in evidence a recurrent questioning done by children, such as the topics of life and death, the eternal inequalities of the “big or diminutive.” All these open questions are intended to be answered through Héroes Personales, by spelling their existence and adding each visitor that unintentionally imagine their own album book.
All dyed in a wonderful halo of fresh ingenuousness and enriched by the mood of someone who knows her business and adds other projects, where she turns to the most intimate. This occurs in her relationship with her son Gillem and her graphic novel Sin palabras and the book Nosotros. A necessary impulse that allows her to do a refractory acknowledgment. Therefore, it gives cause for an approach between who she is and who sees a work that leaves nothing to chance. Conversely, it’s an open door to reflection that is as hard as the task of a man in the middle of the sea who fights to keep up. This is just like Paloma, who finds a way in the autobiographical collective, composed by memories that emerge from the abyssal depth of the unconscious. That is something that requires in itself the enchantment and the necessary persistence to destroy boredom. As Roald Dahl said: “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
QUOTE: "[D]rawing and storytelling fascinate me, but what I truly find most enchanting is childhood, the one children are living today and our own, long-past ones."
Paloma Valdivia
Our invited artist for 2021 is Chilean author and illustrator PALOMA VALDIVIA.
Paloma works as an illustrator of books and music videos, but she also enjoys writing, drawing, and riding a bicycle. Her main occupation, however, is the creation of picture books for children. Her work as an author has been translated into over 15 languages. Among other acknowledgements, she has received the following awards: BIB PLAQUE of the XVIII Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava (Slovakia); Best Designed Book of the Year, by Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission (the German Commission for UNESCO – 2014); the Santiago Municipal Literature Award (Chile) as well as the Little Bird Award (USA) and the Medalla Colibrí (Hummingbird Medal) IBBY Chile, just to name a few.
Some of the Publishing Houses that work with Paloma, or publish her books, are: Amanuta, Chile / Fondo de Cultura Económica de México / La Joie de Lire, Switzerland / Peirópolis, Brazil / Enchanted Lion Books, United States / Kalandraka, Spain / Iwasaki, Japan / Fatatrac, Italy / Groundwood, Canada.
In her own words: “drawing and storytelling fascinate me, but what I truly find most enchanting is childhood, the one children are living today and our own, long-past ones…”. So, in 2019, together with Mónica Bombal, she created Ediciones Liebre, which combines the publishing of books and the creation of applications exclusively designed for children. In 2019, the publishing house was recognized by IBBY (Chile) as having the best compilation of children’s literature. Its titles were selected for the White Ravens list (Germany) and the annual selection of the Cuatrogatos Foundation (USA).
Paloma was also a lecturer at the Catholic University of Chile, in charge of the “Illustration and Autobiographical Narrative” program. As a creative, she also decorated her country’s stand in the previous Bologna International Children’s Book Fair (Italy 2019), and it was breathtakingly beautiful.
During Kolibrí Festivaali, we will have the chance to visit the exhibition of her illustrated work: “NOSOTROS” (Us) from 23.9.2021 to 10.10.2021 in Vuotalo (Helsinki). The exhibition is curated by Ina Fiebig.
During Kolibrí, Paloma will perform three workshops online from her home in Chile: one for babies, one for children from 1 to 4 years old, and the last one for children older than 5 years old. All will have the opportunity to create, sing and have fun with Paloma. The workshops will be take place at Sello Library and at the cultural centers of Vuotalo and Pessi.
Palomas’ books will be available for purchase in Kolibrí’s Children’s Book Fair on September 25, from 12am-4pm in Vuotalo.
The participation of Paloma Valdivia is possible thanks to the support of the Embassy of Chile in Finland and the Direction of Cultural Affairs of Chile, Vuotalo, the Ibero-American Institute of Finland, Liebre Editions, and the publishing houses Amanuta and Kalandraka.
Our special thanks go to Isol Misenta, Patricia Oksa, Ina Fiebig, Yvapurü Samaniego Bonnin, and to the Board of our association, Kulttuurikeskus Ninho (https://ninho.fi/).
QUOTE: "simple yet thoughtful presentation of the unquestioning acceptance and loving bond," as well as a "universal message sweetly and reassuringly expressed."
Valdivia, Paloma NOSOTROS MEANS US Knopf (Children's None) $17.99 5, 11 ISBN: 978-0-593-30514-0
As a mother holds a child on her lap, she talks about the ways their bond will always be there.
In simple, reassuring sentences the mother tells her child how even if their nature were to change, they would still be mother and child: “If I were a sheep, you would be a lamb,” or, “If I were a rabbit, you would be a bunny.” And even when the inevitable occurs and “one day you…hop away,” no matter how both mother and child change, they “would always be mother and child” whenever they’re reunited. A wordless sequence sets up the pair’s imagined reunion as bird and deer. Clean-lined, stylized artwork with a limited palette set against a white background keeps the mother and child as the central focus. Small, unobtrusive details keep the visual narrative flowing; for example, as the parent and child go from human to sheep, the hair texture is repeated, and a small toy horse appears, foreshadowing the next analogy: “Si yo fuera una yegua, tú serías un potrillo / If I were a horse, you would be a foal.” The book was first published in Spanish as Nosotros (2017) in Valdivia’s native Chile, and the English translation of this bilingual edition keeps the same simplicity and directness of the original. It is a simple yet thoughtful presentation of the unquestioning acceptance and loving bond attributed to the parent-child relationship.
A universal message sweetly and reassuringly expressed. (Picture book. 3-5)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Valdivia, Paloma: NOSOTROS MEANS US." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A661545953/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7bf7aed7. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.
QUOTE: : "A tribute to those who pass, a celebration of time here, and a multilayered rumination on the cycle of life."
Valdivia, Paloma AND SO IT GOES Groundwood (Children's Fiction) $17.95 8, 1 ISBN: 978-1-55498-869-3
As loved ones leave this world, others arrive in this existential meditation on the cycle of life, an import from Mexico. On the title page, a girl sits in an older woman's lap, and together they read this very book: And So It Goes. Primitive representations of winged people and pets float across a blue background as the text matter-of-factly states "Some have already left"--this includes the neighbor's cat, a beloved aunt, and the fish from a prior day's meal. Yet even with these losses, there is cause for celebration as others are born and welcomed. Beautifully depicted tears and memories heal, and Valdivia offers the transcendent thought that those leaving and arriving "wish each other happiness" when their paths meet across the sky. Few words populate each page, yet the text is dense with meaning and the artwork rich with joy. Life and death are a mystery, and so readers are reminded to treasure their time here. Sophisticated concepts are visually explained while still leaving room for interpretation; repeat visits bring added depth and dimension. On the closing page, the girl, slightly older, returns to her chair and the book, with her loved one still close and dear. A tribute to those who pass, a celebration of time here, and a multilayered rumination on the cycle of life. (Picture book. 4-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Valdivia, Paloma: AND SO IT GOES." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2017. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A495427618/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c25a1450. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.
QUOTE: "Valdivia offers a bold and surprisingly lighthearted view of existence."
And So It Goes
Paloma Valdivia, trans, from the Spanish by Susan Ouriou. Groundwood (PGW, dist.), $17.95 (36p) ISBN 978-1-55498-869-3
Chilean artist Valdivia (Up Above and Down Below) forms humans and animals with simple geometric shapes, gives them rag-doll features and bits of texture, and colors them with bright red, turquoise, pink, and peach. The figures look childlike, but they grapple with profound questions. In Ouriou's able translation, Valdivia starts midthought: "Some have already left. The neighbor's cat, Aunt Margarita, the fish in yesterday's soup." It takes a second or two to realize that she's talking about death. "Others will arrive. Some were longed for, others come out of the blue." She discusses grief ("Those of us here weep tears for those who leave") and observes that we know nothing about the why of existence: "Those of us here are just here. And so we'd best enjoy ourselves." The vision of life as a temporary and puzzling phenomenon may unsettle those who hold traditional beliefs. But for families comfortable with the idea that nothing transcends what we can know as humans--"It's a mystery where they come from and where they're headed"--Valdivia offers a bold and surprisingly lighthearted view of existence. Ages 4-7. (Aug.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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"And So It Goes." Publishers Weekly, vol. 264, no. 24, 12 June 2017, p. 63. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A495720738/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d6b0b8c1. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.
QUOTE: "charming, low-key explanation," and concluded: "A visually stunning, gently restrained picture book that should be high up on readers' lists."
Valdivia, Paloma UP ABOVE AND DOWN BELOW Owlkids Books (Children's Picture Books) $16.95 8, 15 ISBN: 978-1-926973-39-5
A small book about a big idea. Chilean author/illustrator Valdivia highlights the notion that although different kinds of people live in different places around the world, we share many things in common. The title subtly references the Earth's northern and southern hemispheres, launching readers into a picture book with spreads characterized by a line bisecting each page into upper and lower halves. This graceful attention to design contributes to the great success of this title, in which stylized characters populate both realms. Straightforward, lyrical text describes opposing seasons and other ways in which life in both places differs and coincides. Design and illustration take center stage in this book's achievement, with eye-catching compositions that revel in muted tones, employing well-placed spots of blues and greens to highlight various details. The concluding line, "They can all look at the world the other way around," gently underscores the book's central message about the importance of considering other perspectives and seeing the common ground we share. A visually stunning, gently restrained picture book that should be high up on readers' lists. (Picture book. 4-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
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"Valdivia, Paloma: UP ABOVE AND DOWN BELOW." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2012. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A296121298/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=50838136. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.
QUOTE: "gentle and well-designed introduction to recognizing different points of view" "people are the same wherever they live."
Up Above and Down Below
Paloma Valdivia, trans. from the Spanish by Susan Ouriou. Owlkids (PGW, dist.), $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-926973-39-5
Chilean author/illustrator Valdivia's charming, low-key explanation of life in different hemispheres draws attention to the simple fact that many people live below the equator. "The ones up above live just like the ones down below," Valdivia writes. On the sand-colored page, divided by a red equatorial line (a design element that runs through the entire book), a group of ragdoll-like people with plaid shirts, rosy cheeks, and vintage swimwear stands waiting patiently. Turn the page and the same group appears upside-down below the line, like a mirror reflection. "When spring makes its entrance in one place," the author later writes, "fall pushes its way into the other." Up above, a woman pushes a baby in a pram toward a tree in full leaf; down below, the tree's leaves have fallen. More differences and similarities are catalogued, after which Valdivia concludes, "They can all look at the world the other way around." It's a gentle and well-designed introduction to recognizing different points of view--and a reminder that people are the same wherever they live. Ages 4-6. (Aug.)
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"Up Above and Down Below." Publishers Weekly, vol. 259, no. 22, 28 May 2012, p. 95. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A291616461/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5237e713. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.
QUOTE: charmingly illustrated picture book tackles the very difficult topic of life and death."
VALDIVIA, Paloma. And So It Goes. tr. from Spanish by Susan Ouriou. illus. by Paloma Valdivia. 36p. Groundwood. Aug. 2017. Tr $17.95. ISBN 9781554988693.
PreS-Gr 2--Translated from Spanish, this charmingly illustrated picture book tackles the very difficult topic of life and death and die mysteries that are so often associated with them. The text uses very vague terms, offers no set explanations, and simply posits that some beings and things come into our lives, others leave, and it's not clear where they go or from where they came but those of us left either celebrate or mourn as the situation dictates. "It's a mystery where they come from and where they're headed. Those of us here are just here. And so we'd best enjoy ourselves." The whimsical artwork--done in watercolor, pencil, ink, and Photoshop-uses geometric shapes to form animals and humans alike, with bright colors and varied patterns. Because of the amorphous nature of the meaning and prose, this title is best shared one-on-one. VERDICT A lovely addition to larger library collections.--Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Kopple, Jody. "Valdivia, Paloma. And So It Goes." School Library Journal, vol. 63, no. 7, July 2017, p. 104. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A497611237/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6201d36a. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.
QUOTE: "prompt to embrace everybody's similarities and differences, and to look at the world from another's perspective"
VALDIVIA, Paloma. Up Above and Down Below. tr. from Spanish by Susan Onriou. illus. by author. 32p. Owlkids. 2012. Tr $16.95. ISBN 978-1-926973-39-5. LC 2011943194.
K-Gr 2--In this laconic, minimally illustrated book, Valdivia explores the idea that while people of the northern and southern hemispheres might think of the other as different, in fact, they are quite similar. Their differences depend entirely on one's point of view--after all, what's "down below" to some is "up above" to others. The seasons are the only real disparity: "when spring makes its entrance in one place, fall pushes its way into the other." To illustrate the divide, a red line separates top and bottom halves of the beige spreads. Valdivia's abstractly stylized people with notably large red triangles for noses populate the top half standing right side up, and the bottom half upside down ... unless you turn the book upside down, too. Their perceived peculiarities are whimsical and funny--an "upside-down" boy has a comically oversize mustache, an "upside down" woman sports bunny ears, a right side up man walks a fish next to a girl with antlers. This cleverly designed book ends with the people standing on their heads, underscoring the message that "they can all look at the world the other way around"--a prompt to embrace everybody's similarities and differences, and to look at the world from another's perspective.--Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova, formerly at Chappaqua Library, NY
Alekseyeva-Popova, Yelena
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Alekseyeva-Popova, Yelena. "Valdivia, Paloma. Up Above and Down Below." School Library Journal, vol. 58, no. 10, Oct. 2012, p. 108. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A304171549/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=45dffa9d. Accessed 20 Oct. 2021.
QUOTE: "Beautifully illustrated and with a message of love, this bilingual picture book is a fantastic choice for mothers and their little ones to share."
Olivia Farr
beautiful, bilingual picture bookMay 14, 2021
Overall rating
5.0
Plot/Characters/Writing Style
5.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
5.0
NOSOTROS MEANS US is a beautiful bilingual picture book about the enduring and unconditional love between mother and child. The book is written like a poem, first saying that if the mother was an animal, such as a rabbit or mole, then the child would be a baby animal, such as bunny or pup. Then, the child will leave, and when they return, they will be changed into whatever they want to be - and their parent will have changed too. Readers are reminded that what doesn't change is that they will always be mother and child.
What I loved: The illustrations are simple but beautiful, conveying this story of love, filled with cute parent-child dyads and simple details. The text is also lovely to read aloud with a poetic feel, and the inclusion of both Spanish and English is fantastic. The length of the text would work for a wide variety of ages, and with some pages without any text, they can move as quickly as the reader would like. This would work for infants through elementary school aged picture book readers and would be great for Mother's Day. The reminder that, no matter what, the parent will always be there and will always be the child's parent is perfect.
Final verdict: Beautifully illustrated and with a message of love, this bilingual picture book is a fantastic choice for mothers and their little ones to share.