I love this contemporary children's book by Karen Chacek, an author in México, D.F. The story is fanciful with a slightly dark edge; the illustrations, by Abraham Balcázar, are hilarious.
Little Nina Complot (complot means conspiracy plot in Spanish) surprises everyone when she comes into the world as a girl, rather than the boy that 19 doctors had predicted. She continues to surprise her parents because lloraba tan fuerte que, cada tercer día, sus gritos rompían un cristal de la casa - she cries so hard that every third day her screams break glass in the house - and her mother has to flee through the bathroom window to go shopping.
Nina grows up to be an alert and bright little girl - capable of saving the world. Y el fin del mundo iniciará un día miércoles a las 6:30 a.m. - and the end of the world approaches one Wednesday at 6:30 in the morning, when an ancient old lady plugs in a noisy old vacuum cleaner and sets off a string of chaotic events in the apartment building where Nina lives. . . .
I won't give away the ending!
Nina Complot is published by a great small company in Oaxaca, México: Almadía. I met Karen Chacek at the Feria Internacional del Libro when we unexpectedly found ourselves in a radio interview together. Serendipity can lead to the best discoveries.
No comments:
Post a Comment