Building an Orchestra of Hope: How Favio Chavez Taught Children to Make Music from Trash

by Carmen Oliver, Luisa Uribe (Illustrator)

Overview

An exuberantly illustrated true story about innovation, community, and the power of music.

In Cateura, Paraguay, a town built on a landfill, music teacher Favio Chavez longed to help the families living and working amid the hills of trash. How could he help them find hope for the future? Favio started giving music lessons to Cateura’s children, but soon he encountered a serious problem. He had more students than instruments!

But Favio had a strange and wonderful idea: what if this recyclers’ town had its own recycled orchestra? Favio and Colá, a brilliant local carpenter, began to experiment with transforming garbage into wonder. Old glue canisters became violins; paint cans became violas; drainpipes became flutes and saxophones. With repurposed instruments in their hands, the children of Cateura could fill their community—and the world—with the sounds of a better tomorrow.

Based on an incredible true story, Building an Orchestra of Hope offers an unforgettable picture of human dignity reclaimed from unexpected sources. Carmen Oliver’s inviting words and Luisa Uribe’s dynamic illustrations create a stirring tribute to creativity, resilience, and the transformative nature of hope.

Mississippi Children’s Museum The Magnolia Book Awards 3rd-5th Grade Nominee (2025)

Arizona Library Association Grand Canyon Reader Award Nominee in Nonfiction (2025)

The Nature Generation Green Earth Book Award Recommended Reading List - Picture Book (2024)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802854674
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	10/25/2022
Series:	Stories from Latin America (SLA)
Pages:	44
Sales rank:	486,660
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	AD710L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 9 Years

About the Author

Carmen Oliver is the author of the picture book biography A Voice for the Spirit Bears (Kids Can) and the Bears Make the Best Buddies series (Capstone). She is the founder of the Booking Biz, an agency that brings children's authors and illustrators to schools, libraries, and special events. Carmen lives in Round Rock, Texas, with her family. Visit her website at carmenoliver.com or follow her on Twitter @carmenoliver.



Luisa Uribe has illustrated many books for children, including Your Name Is a Song (Innovation Press), Areli Is a Dreamer (Random House), and Dear Earth.From Your Friends in Room 5 (HarperCollins). In 2018, her work on The Vast Wonder of the World (Millbrook) received the Society of Illustrators Dilys Evans Founder's Award. Luisa lives in Bogotá , Colombia, where she enjoys drawing, reading, and chasing her cat around the house. Visit Luisa's website at luisauribe.com or follow her on Instagram at @lupencita.

Editorial Reviews

The Horn Book Magazine
"An inspiring picture book that demonstrates how environmentalism and the arts can unite to bring joy to an entire community."

Kirkus Reviews
“Like a dose of pure inspiration.

From the Publisher

10/28/2022

K-Gr 4—Don't let readers stop at the last page of this encouraging picture book about Favio Chavez and how he and his people turned a sea of trash into sea of hope by making musical instruments from garbage: "The world sends us garbage. We send back music." Oliver conveys Chavez's story with grace and understanding. The people of Cateura, Paraguay, live in a sea of filth, constantly reminded they are living on a mountain of trash. The ganchero workers construct instruments to create a Recycled Orchestra. Uribe's illustrations seem to give their own musical story of what Oliver is trying to convey. Her art is subtle and soft, carrying readers along to see what happens to this beautiful community. Her illustrated scenes get brighter and brighter as the story comes to an end. VERDICT A strong nonfiction selection to convey that anything is possible, and that even garbage can lead to hope.—Jacquetta Etheridge

School Library Journal

2022-08-31
Harmony comes from an unlikely place.

Arriving in Cateura, Paraguay, in 2006, the musically inclined Argentinean Favio Chávez expected to help the families of “a small village built on a landfill” with a recycling project. The local recyclers, called gancheros, spent their days wading through loads of filthy trash to gather and sell whatever was salvageable. As Favio grew closer to the ganchero community, he worried about the futures of the children. Could he teach them to play instruments in his youth orchestra? One problem: “He had more kids than instruments.” An idea soon struck. Favio roped in a ganchero friend named Nicolás “Colá” Gómez, who repurposed “old drain pipes, door keys, metal forks and spoons, X-ray films, bottle caps, glue canisters,” and more into custom-made instruments over a period of years. At last, the child musicians each got the instrument they needed to create music under the tutelage of Favio. “And what music they made!” Indeed, this remarkable retelling of the surprising origins of the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, which has since gained international acclaim, motivates by the sheer ingenuity described. Oliver’s text carefully chronicles each step undertaken by Favio in his quest to share a little music and hope with the town of Cateura, a community toiling through the material excesses of the modern world. Uribe’s artwork—full of color yet naturalistic in its depictions—complements the prose. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Like a dose of pure inspiration. (further information, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 5-10)

Kirkus Reviews