Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People

by Monica Brown, Julie Paschkis (Illustrator)

Overview

A stunning picture book biography from Monica Brown and illustrator Julie Paschkis about one of the world's most enduring and popular poets, Pablo Neruda

Once there was a little boy named Neftalí who loved wild things wildly and quiet things quietly. From the moment he could talk, he surrounded himself with words. Neftalí discovered the magic between the pages of books. When he was sixteen, he began publishing his poems as Pablo Neruda.

Pablo wrote poems about the things he loved—things made by his friends in the café, things found at the marketplace, and things he saw in nature. He wrote about the people of Chile and their stories of struggle. Because above all things and above all words, Pablo Neruda loved people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805091984
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	03/29/2011
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	502,154
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD740L (what's this?)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Monica Brown is the author of several bilingual books for children inspired by her Peruvian-American heritage. She is a recipient of the Américas Award for Children's Literature and a professor of English at Northern Arizona University.

Julie Paschkis has illustrated many award-winning books, including Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A Worldwide Cinderella by Paul Fleischman and Through Georgia's Eyes by Rachel Rodríguez. For Pablo Neruda, Julie traveled to Chile to see Neruda's home and the people that inspired him.

Editorial Reviews

This gentle tribute to Chilean poet Neruda explores his formative experiences, from searching for "beetles and birds' eggs" in the forest to discovering his love for books. Paschkis incorporates Spanish and English words into her organic, stylized compositions (the opening scene features a literal river of words), while Brown lyrically chronicles Neruda's poetic subjects ("He wrote about buttons and feathers and shoes and hats. He wrote about velvet cloth the color of the sea") and highlights his devotion to the poor and suffering. Readers may not gain a real sense of Neruda's work from this collaboration, but Brown and Paschkis paint a compelling portrait of a man who saw the world as a joyful, complex, and beautiful poem waiting to be unveiled. Ages 1–4. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

A visual and thematic stunner.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“Brown and Paschkis paint a compelling portrait of a man who saw the world as a joyful, complex, and beautiful poem waiting to be unveiled.” —Publishers Weekly

“Brown's succinct lines read like a poem themselves, and they emphasize the infinite places writers find inspiration, from seashores to coal mines to the faces of people they love.” —Booklist

“Impassioned (story)telling combine with Paschkis's vibrant, decorative style for a book high in child appeal.” —School Library Journal

“It all adds up to an intriguing taste of Neruda's themes and concerns, winningly dramatized in the splendor of Paschkis's illustrations.” —Horn Book Magazine

From the Publisher

K-Gr 3—This introduction to Chile's Nobel Prize-winning poet celebrates the glorious qualities of words as it describes Neruda's delight in them. On the cover, a young Neftalí reaches out, and blue and green rivulets of Spanish and English swirl from his hand toward readers: "Luminescent/Sense/Nonsense/Nets/Neftalí/If/Laughter/La Luz/Azul/All." As Brown provides an overview of Neruda's life from childhood and his fortuitous tutelage under Gabriela Mistral through the activism that forced him to flee from home as an adult, and Paschkis paints words on ferns, skies, roads, and banners that surround and relate to the action depicted. While the boy shares a horseback ride with a friend, the leaves on the vine overhead read: "Ayer/Eye/Ojo/Why/Hoja/Sky/Hope/Open." Other dynamic spreads relate to the poet's collections of ships in bottles and rocks or his love of opposites and the beach. The final scene depicts the titles of his poems in a variety of languages as the author explains his international acclaim. The book concludes with a brief author's note about the poet. The attributes that Brown has selected to share and her simple, but impassioned telling combine with Paschkis's vibrant, decorative style for a book high in child appeal. Pair it with Roni Schotter's The Boy Who Loved Words (Random, 2006) or, for older children who are swept up in the particular allure of Neruda's life and poetry, share Pam Muñoz Ryan's The Dreamer (Scholastic, 2010).—Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library

School Library Journal

More than a heartwarming portrait of Chile's most revered poet, this splendid tribute to Pablo Neruda animates his global appeal with a visceral immediacy capable of seducing readers of any age. Brown's spare descriptions of the little boy who "loved wild things wildly and quiet things quietly" and grew to write poems about "velvet cloth the color of the sea," contrasts wonderfully with Paschkis' lush, earth-toned paintings that teem with the florid stream of words and images populating the inner world of the budding poetic consciousness. The word-laden illustrations, sporting names of authors in tree bark or swirling adjectives in the hollow of the moon, are a constant throughout the volume, spilling from Spanish to English, sound to sense—"arc oro orange azure azul ample apple simple timber timbre..."—and back again, with as great a depiction of creative processing as one's likely to see. At pains to depict Neruda above all as "a poet of the people," Brown encourages young readers to notice the suggestive world around them and then render it for others through language. She moves seamlessly from describing Neruda's poetic artistry to political activism, showing how an appreciation for the stones of Chile "tumbling down the mountaintops" could lead to his understanding of their value in "the hands of the stonecutters." A visual and thematic stunner. (author's note, bibliography)(Picture book. 4-11)

Kirkus Reviews

More than a heartwarming portrait of Chile's most revered poet, this splendid tribute to Pablo Neruda animates his global appeal with a visceral immediacy capable of seducing readers of any age. Brown's spare descriptions of the little boy who "loved wild things wildly and quiet things quietly" and grew to write poems about "velvet cloth the color of the sea," contrasts wonderfully with Paschkis' lush, earth-toned paintings that teem with the florid stream of words and images populating the inner world of the budding poetic consciousness. The word-laden illustrations, sporting names of authors in tree bark or swirling adjectives in the hollow of the moon, are a constant throughout the volume, spilling from Spanish to English, sound to sense—"arc oro orange azure azul ample apple simple timber timbre..."—and back again, with as great a depiction of creative processing as one's likely to see. At pains to depict Neruda above all as "a poet of the people," Brown encourages young readers to notice the suggestive world around them and then render it for others through language. She moves seamlessly from describing Neruda's poetic artistry to political activism, showing how an appreciation for the stones of Chile "tumbling down the mountaintops" could lead to his understanding of their value in "the hands of the stonecutters." A visual and thematic stunner. (author's note, bibliography)(Picture book. 4-11)

Kirkus Reviews - Kikus Reviews