Illustrating a book has something of a magical interpretation. What the illustrator finally represents accesses that intimate space in which the whisper of the writer and the inner voice of the reader coexist, a four-dimensional conversation from the single plane of page x. And the good illustrator has that gift for capturing the conversation.
Nuria Díaz shows in this book that she belongs to that group of good illustrators. Of course, the story must be worthwhile, it must transmit, offer the necessary empathy that provokes the conversation and that invites to immortalize in an illustration that comes to life in combination with the words.
Without a doubt, the excuse, the argument, is worth it. Juliette, the protagonist of the story, has privileged eyes ... nothing to do with the color of her irirs, nor with her visual ability. I mean the ability to see, observe and imagine in a single glance. His glance encompasses everything. When he travels on the subway, he is fascinated by discovering readers duped into their adventures on paper. A wonderful routine brings them all together there, in their subway seats but transferred to distant worlds or remote ideas.
Juliette, however, decides one day to write her own adventure. It is not that pencil and paper are in hand. It's just a breakthrough decision with your routine. He gets off the subway before getting to work ... and see what happens.
Because Juliette admires the brilliance of literature when it comes to the guided tour of reading. She likes books and readers, but she also craves a change, a novelty, an unforeseen adventure that surprises and revives her in some way.
And she also ends up embarking on a fabulous journey, an adventure that readers read on the subway and that may be read tomorrow, when one of them, the readers, opens a new book not yet written today.
We can imagine an Alicia getting off at the Atocha station to find her wonderland, or Judy Garland subjected to the whim of a Kansas hurricane converted into a stream from the last subway station. What happens to Juliette will depend on her will to make her life the most exciting of adventures.
You can now buy the illustrated book: The girl who read on the subwayA work of Christine Feret-Fleury, illustrated by Nuria Díaz, here:
Ooooh! I just came across this. Thank you so much 🙂
Thank you. The truth is that illustration has always fascinated me. I have also collaborated with illustrators and they do amazing things