Charcoal Boys

Gr 3 Up–In this bizarre, yet strikingly beautiful book in translation, Mello presents the story of a Brazilian child laborer through the eyes of a hornet. In a meandering conversational style, the hornet addresses readers in the second person. She abruptly switches back and forth between the story of a young boy working in the coal mines and her own preoccupations with feeding her egg. The boy escapes the grasp of an inspector, and accidentally loses a mysterious key given to him urgently by his friend who was not so lucky. In his frustration, the boy destroys the hornet’s nest, receives a retributive sting, and the book ends uncertainly with the boy in a fever. The odd style of narration, quick changes in pace and tense, and illustrative language require close and careful reading. For these reasons it is unclear how much children will understand or appreciate the story. Furthermore, as the boy’s friend smokes cigarettes, and the word hell is used, it may be better suited for a more mature reader. That said, the unique and stark illustrations, created in highly textured layers of paint and paper, are gallery-worthy. While most pages are black or dark grayscale, pops of brilliant neon oranges and pinks stand out, and on rare occasions, occupy the majority of a page. Mello creates silhouettes that resemble haunting cave paintings, and captures the essence of fire in several forms, from wispy thin smoke, to bright chunky paper cutouts.