Outside in World | Browse Books
Use our Book Finder to search for books by Title (or part of the title), Author, ISBN, Age Range, Keyword, or Continent/Country. Then simply click the magnifying glass to start your search.
If a title starts with 'The', leave this out as this is added to the end of the title in brackets. funny pictures funny images funny photos really funny pictures
‘We need the literature of other countries to expand our
horizons and stimulate our ideas. Without it, we are not only
diminished, we are starved’
(The Times, Magnus Linklater 29/06/05)
Please email us to sign up to our Newsletter
Charcoal Boys
by Roger Mello
Age Range: 9-11
Charcoal Boys is an unusual and multi-layered picture book which will require several readings to fully appreciate its complexity.
The unlikely narrator is a hornet. While in search of food for his larva in its mud nest it observes two boys as they tend the charcoal ovens. On a brief break from their backbreaking work at the coal yard, they inadvertently start a fire on the scrubland when one of them drops a lighted cigarette. Chaos ensues and the boys have to hide from the inspectors. Alongside this story is another about the hornet and its sole quest to protect its egg.
Award-winning Brazilian author and illustrator Roger Mello has created a sophisticated and enigmatic book, beautifully translated by Daniel Hahn, which will likely appeal to a much older audience. The text meanders between poetic prose and the jovial conversational style of the hornet. The story is also intertwined with surrealism – the imaginary perspective of the narrator – and realism – the child labour and the environmental consequences of charcoal production.
The text can be perplexing at times making it hard to follow what is going on and Mello leaves much unanswered. Towards the end of the book, the boy is stung by the hornet because he has destroyed its nest and the story ending is ambiguous with the reader left to draw their own conclusion. It is perhaps, more the visual narrative, that provides clues with its mainly black and white palette, the black pages representing the charcoal. The collage silhouettes and papercuts enhance the terrible bushfire with the pages cut out in the shape of flames in vivid orange, pink and red.
It is difficult to place this picture book in any reading age category and for younger audiences it will require some adult input to navigate some of the themes but definitely one to consider using in the classroom or a group setting.
A powerful and mesmerising book with much to absorb.
Roger Mello, a recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award has published more than a hundred titles for children and young adults.
Other Mello titles reviewed on the Outside In Website are Joao By a Thread (2022) and You Can’t Be Too Careful (2017)