Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda & His Muse

by Alexandria Giardino, Felicita Sala (Illustrator)

Overview

Alexandria Giardinoand Felicita Sala’s poetic, beautifully illustrated picture book is inspired by Ode to the Onion by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904–1973).

A Junior Library Guild Selection

Pablo has a lunch date with his friend Matilde, who shows the moody poet her garden. Where Pablo sees conflict and sadness, Matilde sees love and hope.

The story is less a biography of Neruda and his muse, Matilde Urrutia (1912–1985), and more a simple ode to a vegetable that is humble and luminous, dark and light, gloomy and glad, full of grief and full of joy—just like life.

“Children who love words should warm to Alexandria Giardino’s Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda & His Muse . . . In Felicita Sala’s vivacious and beautifully detailed drawings, done in colored pencil, Mathilde’s smile and Pablo’s glum expression give a tender humor to this real-life relationship.” —New York Times

“Gloomy versus hopeful. Therein lies the timeless tension between Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda and his wife-to-be in this lovingly envisioned and supremely handsome book.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781944903343
Publisher:	Cameron Kids
Publication date:	10/09/2018
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	217,860
Product dimensions:	10.20(w) x 11.60(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD600L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Felicita Sala is the self-taught illustrator of several picture books, including All from a Walnut by Ammi-Joan Paquette, Be a Tree! by Maria Gianferrari, and The Hideout by Susanna Mattiangeli, as well as her own book of recipes for children, What’s Cooking at 10 Garden Street? She grew up between Italy and Australia and now lives in Rome, Italy, with her family.

Editorial Reviews

Children who love words should warm to Alexandria Giardino's Ode to an Onion…The spare prose echoes Neruda's own celebrations in verse of simple things…In Felicita Sala's vivacious and beautifully detailed drawings, done in colored pencil, Mathilde's smile and Pablo's glum expression give a tender humor to this real-life relationship…

The New York Times Book Review - Julie Just

09/10/2018
Debut author Giardino envisions the inspiration behind one of Pablo Neruda’s odes to familiar objects. Feeling downtrodden after writing a “long, sad poem” about the lives of miners, Neruda is uplifted by a visit to his friend Matilde’s lush garden home, where “the air smelled like licorice and mud.” Matilde, an exuberant redhead (Pablo’s future wife), recognizes Pablo’s sadness and takes him on a walk through the garden, where her passion and optimism contrast with Pablo’s bleak perspective. But after picking an onion and slicing it for lunch, Pablo recognizes its beauty and complexity, something so much more than “a lowly vegetable.” Sala’s matte artwork features thick lines, playfully skewed angles, and motifs from Neruda’s body of work appearing in his cluttered seaside study. An end note shares biographical details about “Pablo and Matilde,” and Neruda’s “Ode to an Onion,” in Spanish and English, ends the book. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Onionskin endpapers are a nice touch to an introduction to the Chilean poet who paid tribute to familiar objects."

Booklist

"Children who love words should warm to Alexandria Giardino's ODE TO AN ONION: Pablo Neruda & His Muse . . . In Felicita Sala’s vivacious and beautifully detailed drawings, done in colored pencil, Mathilde’s smile and Pablo’s glum expression give a tender humor to this real-life relationship."

New York Times

"A handsome book about appreciation."

San Francisco Chronicle

"This one is a treat for the eyes and ears."

Maria Russo

"Onionskin endpapers are a nice touch to an introduction to the Chilean poet who paid tribute to familiar objects."
—Booklist

"Sala's exuberant illustrations are playful and colorful . . . a sweet story about the creative process."—Kirkus Reviews

"Children who love words should warm to Alexandria Giardino's ODE TO AN ONION: Pablo Neruda His Muse . . . In Felicita Sala’s vivacious and beautifully detailed drawings, done in colored pencil, Mathilde’s smile and Pablo’s glum expression give a tender humor to this real-life relationship."—New York Times

"A handsome book about appreciation."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Gloomy versus hopeful. Therein lies the timeless tension between Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda and his wife-to-be in this lovingly envisioned and supremely handsome book."—San Francisco Chronicle

"This one is a treat for the eyes and ears."—Maria Russo, New York Times Children's Book Editor

From the Publisher

"Gloomy versus hopeful. Therein lies the timeless tension between Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda and his wife-to-be in this lovingly envisioned and supremely handsome book."

San Francisco Chronicle

"Onionskin endpapers are a nice touch to an introduction to the Chilean poet who paid tribute to familiar objects."

Booklist

"A handsome book about appreciation."

San Fransisco Chronicle

2018-07-30

The author imagines the day when the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was inspired to write an ode to an onion.

As the book starts, a man is writing at his desk. His name is Pablo, and he is writing a long and sad poem, which makes him feel gloomy. This gloom will permeate much of his outlook that day. Soon he's off to lunch with his friend Matilde. To dispel the glum mood, Matilde invites Pablo into the garden to collect what they need for lunch. For every happy and upbeat expression Matilde utters about the flowers and vegetables in the garden, Pablo responds with a sad comment. Back in the kitchen, when Pablo cuts into an onion, "all he saw through his tears was a lowly vegetable. But then he noticed how the sunlight shone through the onion's layers." He thanks Matilde for reminding him there is also happiness in the world. And thus, Pablo is inspired to write an ode to an onion. Sala's exuberant illustrations are playful and colorful, depicting both Pablo and Matilde with pale skin. The backmatter includes a very brief account of the famous Nobel Prize winner's life along with the poem with its English translation. Unfortunately, for most children in the United States not familiar with Neruda, his importance in 20th-century Spanish literature will not be apparent. Read along with Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People, by Monica Brown and illustrated by Julie Paschkis (2011).

Read for a sweet story about the creative process (but not for information about Neruda). (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews