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Loading... The Things in the Airby Carmen Gil
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A los duendes chisposos les encantan las cosas del aire... pero las brujas narigudas quieren acabar con ellas: un cuento que hará volar tu imaginación. The Things in the Air is a tale that will fill your air with surprises and fill your child's face with a huge smile that no one will be able to wipe off -- not even the Snouty Witches! Lexile Level: 900L No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresNo genres Melvil Decimal System (DDC)813.08766Literature English (North America) American fiction By type Genre fiction Adventure fiction Speculative fiction FantasyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Originally published in Spain as Las cosas del aire, and translated into English by Jon Brokenbrow, who also translated Pilar López Ávila's gorgeous Ayobami and the Names of the Animals and Ariel Andrés Almada's lovely The Lighthouse of Souls, this is a book I tracked down largely because of my interest in witchy picture-books. Unfortunately, despite my predisposition to like it, I was mostly unimpressed with The Things in the Air, finding the story somewhat odd and unsatisfying, and the artwork only occasionally appealing. Sometimes, when I read translated picture-books, and don't take to them, I think something must be lost in the translation, but given my positive reaction to other books that Brokenbrow has worked on, I think the fault must lie with Carmen Gil's story. Her central idea is interesting, but the end result doesn't feel convincing, and her characters, both elves and witches, feel like overblown caricatures. The artwork from Omar Turcios is garishly colorful, and not really to my taste. My favorite scenes, from a visual perspective, ended up being the ones depicting the Snouty Witches, which is probably not that surprising, given my interest in such figures. I'm not sorry to have read this, given my interest in both witchy tales and translated children's books, but I'm not sure I strongly recommend it either. ( )