Original language: Catalan / Spanish
Year of publication: 2024
Valuation: recommendable
I have always liked Rocio Bonilla’s children’s stories, as is clearly evident in the reviews of her books that I have made in ULAD. His soft lines, the colors used and the messages that accompany his books make them approachable and friendly characters.
In the book in question, the author once again uses the pastel tones characteristic of her work, but in this case she also uses the technique of collageinterspersing it in the drawing itself, thus achieving an original and successful visual effect, with a design that emanates sensations of the past and in which the use of the pencil and the watercolor It is perfectly evident throughout the pages.
At the plot level, and as usual in Bonilla, the story stars children through whom we see the world from their innocent gaze, although, in this case, the author adds a point of mystery to the plot which differentiates this book from the rest of his work. The story begins by introducing the twins, their tastes and hobbies, their similarities and differences, but also what unites them especially: making cakes. So, on a visit to the market in which they accompany their mother to do the shopping (and which helps us remember our childhood doing the same with our mother), the pair of brothers see something that apparently is not easily perceptible ( or at least not in the eyes of the rest of the world) well, he accidentally discovers that the market vendors and the people who work there are not really people, but monsters with human appearance.
Yes, it seems that the plot is not very typical of children’s themes but Bonilla plays very well with that because in reality what he does is add some animal member to the “paradistas”: a tentacle that sticks out of the leg of a pair of pants, some antennas that can be seen under a salesperson’s hair, etc. and the brothers, surprised, cannot understand how no one else notices, how there are monsters that live among them without anyone seeming to care. So they begin to investigate those strange beings that, almost imperceptibly, mix among society, to find out what their characteristics and intentions are. And until here I will tell.
For everything discussed, it is a recommendable book, because maintaining the graphic style and tone of the author’s usual stories, in this case it adds a point of interesting mystery that concludes with an open ending, in which readers will have to interpret the story told and in which, deep down, it makes us tenderly remember the ease that children have to imagine, dream and live adventures whether through real or invented elements.
Source: https://unlibroaldia.blogspot.com/2024/04/rocio-bonilla-una-de-monstruos.html
