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Letters in Charcoal
by Irene Vasco
Age Range: Under_5
“Back then, almost nobody in the pueblo where we lived knew how to read, much less write.”
The narrator, a young girl living in the pueblo of Palenque in Colombia, is curious about the envelopes that keep arriving each month addressed to her older sister Gina from a young doctor. The sisters can only guess at the content but Gina is sure they contain promises of love. Driven by an intense curiosity the narrator makes a decision that will change, not only her life but those living in the pueblo forever. Enlisting the help Señor Velandia, the owner of the village shop, who is one of the few people who can read and write she embarks on a journey of discovery – “letters of the alphabet were everywhere but hardly anyone knew how to read them.”. As the narrator unlocks these letters she begins to experience the magic of reading.
This is a beautiful, gentle story by Colombian author Irene Vasco, translated by Lawrence Schimel, which has woven together many stories based on those told to her by women from across Colombia of how they learnt to read and write.
The atmospheric artwork by Juan Palomino brings warmth and depth to the story as each page depicts the life of the community in the pueblo. In a note at the back of the book Vasco provides historical context to the story – the effects of colonisation of the Americas on the indigenous population, the enslaved people who were brought there, the ‘palenques’, tiny settlements built by African slaves or their descendants who had escaped and the ‘freedom’ to learn to read and write which only came about belatedly in the 20th century – which makes Letters in Charcoal an empowering and inspiring story about one young girl’s determination to learn to read and write.






























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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