I am not the reader for Almost True by Clarice Lispector. It did not “grab me” but I know several people will find this amusing and clever. The illustrations are unusual and have a little fun going on but are also not over the top silly. Yet, they are oddly abstract with a realistic touch,
Once I realized that it was translated by Benjamin Moser I figured that it was the translation of things that was not being liked by my reading ear. The text is awkward, at best, with its repetition, jumping about, and lack of concentration, and while that could work for the original language, it did not work for me. Then the illustrations were part of my issues. Carla Irusta put in the time and effort to make them fit Leispector’s vision, but I was not seeing it. The cover shows the not fully “fleshed out” details. The chickens don’t look like chickens (they don’t look like a cow or something like that, but I was thinking they were odd chickens), the dog has some odd parts to it and that tree is not something I would want to try and climb.
Yet, the humor and the classic moral story, that journey of a hero learning right from wrong and good from bad all makes it work for the person willing to take the time to read this longer picture book. It has an audience, which I would assume would be older children (at least five and up) and adults.
And speaking of adults, I was wondering if this might be the authors first (or one of their first) picture books as if it is the same author, the titles I could find by them leaned towards adult novels.