Night Runners

Written and illustrated by Geraldo Valério

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-569-4

52 pp.

Ages 3-6

October 2022

Who needs words when art can say so much? Geraldo Valério is one of our most accomplished wordless picture book author-illustrators, telling rich stories in the natural world with a luxuriance of colour and shape and teeming with interaction that supersedes words. Night Runners is his newest.

From Night Runners by Geraldo Valério

In Night Runners, a stag–with a messenger bag–bounds across a field into a coniferous forest, lured by a shining circlet of stars in the sky. There are many downed trees and just as the stag turns to check out the possibility of wolves, he stumbles on a fallen tree and injures its leg. As the tearful deer lays there, waiting for the wolves to come and slay it, something amazing happens. The wolves do arrive, but they encircle the deer, and bring it water and foraged food, and even wrap the wound with leaves. 

From Night Runners by Geraldo Valério

Together they follow the beacon of stars to a gathering of animals around a fire. All animals are represented, from moose and beaver, dragonfly and rooster, snake and skunk, and they all welcome the wolves and stag to their company. But when the stag opens his bag, the gathering becomes a true party of song and dance, and the circle of stars becomes a sky filled with brilliant stellar orbs.

Geraldo Valério's message of finding unexpected friends, even among those most feared, is a compelling one, especially for our times. The deer expects the worst when faced with a potential enemy but instead finds compassion and companionship. And together they discover something even more powerful and add to it with their presence.

From Night Runners by Geraldo Valério

Geraldo Valério's story fills the reader with hope for respect and humanity, something desperately needed nowadays. We need to know that good can happen in the midst of tragedy and Geraldo Valério makes us feel that promise for goodness and empathy. His striking artwork, rendered in acrylic paint and coloured pencil on watercolour paper, gives us that hope, with the boldness of colour and line bringing the power of his story to the eyes.  The stars that shine are for everyone and, with his diversity of animals, both domestic and not, Geraldo Valério makes sure that everyone can be part of this story.

My Book of Butterflies: Guest review

The following review was written by 

teacher-librarian Elizabeth Cook.

 

Written and illustrated by Geraldo Valério

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-335-5

48 pp.

Ages 3-6

2021

I was instantly drawn to My Book of Butterflies when I saw its cover. The bright yellow and oversized butterfly wing will capture the attention of everyone when they see My Book of Butterflies by Geraldo Valério. The lively cover made me feel like this was going to be such a happy book that I couldn’t wait to open the cover to discover what the book was all about. The inside cover is equally spectacular with drawings of all of the caterpillars of the book and the back cover has all of them drawn in their chrysalis stages too. I explored these images for a surprisingly long time as I was drawn in by their illustrations and their names (Itys Leafwing and Common Jezebel are my personal favourites).

From My Book of Butterflies by Geraldo Valério

The book begins with Geraldo Valério recounting his childhood experiences watching the caterpillars and butterflies in his home in Brazil. His fascination with these beautiful creatures never ceased and he wanted to share the beauty of the butterflies with all of his readers. The book depicts, with detailed drawings, the metamorphosis from egg to butterfly and the parts of the butterfly, as well including a map of the world where butterflies can be found and a glossary to help inform the reader.  To help organize the various butterflies depicted, Geraldo Valério uses different coloured backgrounds to identify the part of the world where the butterflies can be found. It is a bright and fun way to engage readers with the book.

From My Book of Butterflies by Geraldo Valério

The pages which focus on each butterfly are gorgeous. Simply stunning. The double-spreads are filled with oversized artwork of the butterflies with impressive details demonstrating the delicacy of the wings. Each page turn had me gasping at how pretty each butterfly was. Surrounding the enormous butterfly is a highly modern and almost geometric representation of what the environment looks like for that particular butterfly (I was very fond of the geometric tall grasses and yellow flowers of the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing in Papua New Guinea). 

From My Book of Butterflies by Geraldo Valério

While the artwork of the book is clearly the star, the information on each page is also fun to read. Each butterfly is identified by its Latin name and there is a short paragraph with important facts. Most paragraphs focus on one unique fact about the butterfly and would be a great starting point for further research. I enjoyed learning how the European Peacock butterfly hibernates over winter and can hiss to scare away predators such as small rodents.

As a teacher-librarian, I can already tell that this book will be hard to keep on my shelves. However, the students will have to try to be quick to check out this book, as I know a lot of teachers will want to use this book for their science curriculum, particularly the Grade 2 Growth and Changes in Animals unit in Ontario.  Moreover, I know that the art teachers will be checking out the book for students to create some beautiful masterpieces using the illustrations in My Book of Butterflies for inspiration. I will definitely need to get more than one copy for my library...and perhaps one for my home collection!

~Elizabeth Cook is a teacher-librarian in the Halton District School Board. She is an avid reader and fan of Canadian literature. 

At the Pond

Written and illustrated by Geraldo Valério

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-232-7

48 pp.

Ages 3-7

March 2020

A visit to a pond teaches a young boy a lesson in securing friendship without subjucation in this new wordless picture book from Geraldo Valério.

From At the Pond by Geraldo Valério

In a grey forest of grabbing branches of trees, a dog is tied up outside a house. When a boy emerges to take the forlorn dog for a walk on its yellow leash, they are drawn to a brilliant blue pond rife with swans. When one of the swans approaches and takes the boy and his dog for a ride on its back, they float through spectacular landscapes of pink roseate spoonbills, frolicking rabbits and foxes, meadows of foxglove and a plethora of brightly coloured flowers.

From At the Pond by Geraldo Valério

But when the boy finally releases the dog to chase dragonflies, the boy chooses to place the leash on the swan. With that, Geraldo Valério's illustration turns dark once again, with only the blue of the panicked swans as they retreat. Thankfully the boy sees the hurt in the tearful swan's eyes and releases his new friend, returning the world to one of colour, joy and compassion.

From At the Pond by Geraldo Valério

As a wordless picture book, At the Pond teems with emotion, primarily through artist Geraldo Valério's use of colour, though also with line and shape. In his complex illustrations. created with pencil, acrylics, latex, markers and even gouache, Geraldo Valério explores what it means to be a friend. From that poor chained dog, almost insignificant in a bleak world of darkness, to the unconstrained life of the pond and its environs, Geraldo Valério makes it clear that friendship is not conditional upon control, though some might envision it to be so, and this boy certainly does at the outset of the story. Friendship is about allowing a dog or a swan to be free to be themselves and share in the wonder of that freedom. It is only with the banishment of the enforced bonds that a relationship of closeness and compassion can be realized. 

From At the Pond by Geraldo Valério

••••••••••••••••

For a treat, publisher Groundwood Books (House of Anansi Press) has shared a video online at https://youtu.be/kZSv-KILJlg of author-illustrator Geraldo Valério bringing life, through pencil, to a pair of swans from At the Pond.

Drawing with author and illustrator Geraldo Valério

Uploaded by House of Anansi to YouTube on May 1, 2020

Blue Rider

 

Written and illustrated by Geraldo Valério

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-981-2

44 pp.

Ages 4-7

March 2018

At first glance, Blue Rider might appear to be a story about a blue horse and a child with a book. But Blue Rider, like the early 1900s art movement–Der Blaue Reiter–it honours, is more about a rejection of the norms and finding new worlds of expression, whether through art or story.

From Blue Rider by Geraldo Valério

This is the story of one young child living in a sombrely coloured city, just one face in one room in one building in a city rife with buildings. 

From Blue Rider by Geraldo Valério

Even when they leave the building, the child is but one among the throngs hurrying, talking, using cellphones, bustling, bustling, bustling. Then the child spots a book, a book with a blue horse on the cover, in an opening amidst the crowd.  They grab it and take it up to their room.

From Blue Rider by Geraldo Valério

Opening that book and seeing that magnificent blue horse charging across the page similarly plunges the child into new worlds of colour and bold lines and shapes and new landscapes.  Page after page, the blue horse is transforming, its mane effervescing into comets of colour and audacious shape, morphing into its scenery, illuminating, animating and revitalizing all.  Finally the horse and the scene almost become one, a mix of brightness and bliss.  At that point, the child is seen mounted on the racing horse, while the dull room is transformed with new forms of colour.

Blue Rider is a wordless picture book, the story told solely through Geraldo Valério's illustrations.  What the reader takes from the plot of the book and its artwork is very personal.  Blue Rider may pay homage to Der Blaue Reiter, the avant-garde art movement that focused on distorted abstractions and gave intensity and movement through form and colour, but it’s also about the value of going outside of societal norms to embrace new opportunities and ways of seeing.  It gives the message that conformity may be soul stifling and that, when possibilities present, it is important to seize them as they provide chances to move into new worlds and enhance life. The book the child discovers takes them away temporarily but permanently enhances their world and consequently those of others to one of colour and vivacity. As all readers and art lovers know, art–written, visual and more–can give life and soul to those lost in mass existence, just as a book does for a child in Blue Rider.

From Blue Rider by Geraldo Valério