What is the ultimate goal of the picture book import? When someone takes the time to bring over and translate a work for children, they’re expecting that book to be able to say something universal. They want the book to be enjoyable to child readers regardless of nationality, which, when you sit down and think about it, is a pretty lofty goal. Yet this year I’ve been seeing some absolutely amazing translations in America for kids. From the Colombian Jimmy the Greatest to the Norwegian John Jensen Feels Different to the French My Dad Is Big and Strong, But . . . this has been an amazing year for international children’s literature. Now Spain enters the ring with La Coleccionista de Palabras or The Word Collector. A heady infusion of striking images and playful content, author/illustrator Sonja Wimmer brings us a fantastical tale that has something to say to us today, yesterday, and tomorrow as well.
What do you collect? Coins? Stamps? Stickers? Have you ever considered collecting words? Luna, the heroine of this little tale, does exactly that and the job fills her days. Whether they’re magic words or delicious words or humble words, pretty much if they are words she is interested. The trouble only comes the day that Luna reels in her nets to find just a paltry smattering of words, hardly enough to satisfy. It seems the people of the word just aren’t using the beautiful words out there anymore. So what’s a girl to do when the world grows forgetful? She packs her suitcase with every word in her arsenal and sets off to right a great wrong, that’s what.
This is not a book for lazy people. It demands that you work at it. You can’t just sit back and have the text come to you as you flip through the pages. Some spreads seem fairly straightforward with the words traveling in a single straight line. Other times I felt like I was reading Bob Raczka’s Lemonade again, picking out the words and sentences where I could find them. Your first indication that this isn’t the usual fare comes on the fourth or fifth pages of the story. After reading that there was a girl named Luna who lived in the sky we encounter this luminous (most of the pages are luminous, by the way) image of a red haired child Madonna of sorts staring into a glass container of softly glowing letters like a kid with a firefly jar. When I first encountered