The Invisible Parade: A Guest Post by Leigh Bardguo and John Picacio
On Día de Muertos, Cala is reeling after the death of her beloved grandfather. But sudden unexpected visitors send her on a daring mission in which she discovers the healing powers of grief, hope and perseverance, even in the darkest of times. Read on for an exclusive essay from Leigh Bardugo and John Picacio on The Invisible Parade.
Hardcover $19.99
The Invisible Parade
The Invisible Parade
By
Leigh Bardugo
,
John Picacio
Artist
John Picacio
In Stock Online
Hardcover $19.99
The picture book debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo and World Fantasy Award winner John Picacio.
It’s time to join the party! Adventure awaits readers of all ages on Día de Muertos in this stunningly original and lushly illustrated tour de force about family, love, and overcoming grief.
The picture book debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo and World Fantasy Award winner John Picacio.
It’s time to join the party! Adventure awaits readers of all ages on Día de Muertos in this stunningly original and lushly illustrated tour de force about family, love, and overcoming grief.
The Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland was one of the first that Walt conceived, but it took the longest to bring to life, and it wouldn’t open until years after his death. One of the big debates that slowed its creative development was whether the attraction should be funny or truly scary. (No surprise, we both loved this ride growing up. Whether there’s a direct correlation to our fondness for wearing black and listening to The Cure, science cannot yet say.)
The truth is that this tension between the silly and the spooky is deeply embedded in many rides at Disneyland: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is a rollicking good time—until you’re sentenced straight to hell at journey’s end. Amid the jolly songs and visual gags, Pirates of the Caribbean packs in cursed skeletons, gun fights, and of course, the repeated, eerie warning, “Dead men tell no tales.”
Fear and suspense are intimately linked and provide the engine for these stories, the momentum that carries us to that ending rush when we’re thrust back into sunlight and the real world. But humor is just as necessary: a release that makes all that tension tolerable, that signals we’re on an adventure and we’re going to find our way through it.
When we took on writing The Invisible Parade, we knew we would need to embrace this close relationship between the laugh and the gasp. We wanted to tell a story about overcoming grief and the many different types of fear that can accompany the loss of someone you love. But most importantly, this story had to be an adventure, a hero’s journey past sadness to wonder.
We like to describe The Invisible Parade as “The Wizard of Oz set in a graveyard.” In it, a young girl named Cala is trapped in the grief of her grandfather’s passing, and as her family prepares to honor him on Día de Muertos, she can’t connect to the bustle and celebration around her. It is only by having the courage to pass through the cemetery gates, that she can begin her adventure and start to reconnect to the world of the living. That night she’ll meet four mysterious riders, each with a lesson to share. They scare her, but they make her laugh too. They show her just how brave she can be.
Día de Muertos is not Mexican Halloween. It is a holiday that speaks directly to the presence of death and the way that constant presence can make us more conscious of and more grateful for the magic of this life. Its iconography is not just beautiful and haunting, but also full of wit and humor. We tried to bring that sensibility to every page of Cala’s story and we hope it will offer families and friends new ways to talk about loss, a chance to reach out to each other when we aren’t sure what to say. And for people just looking for a good story? We hope it will be a wild, unexpected ride to someplace completely new. We hope you’ll join us as we walk through those cemetery gates.