Mariana Rizzuto and Marina Hernaíz have more things in common than “Our days”, the album book that brought them together in a two-year process and that made them worthy of the second prize in the Rionegrino Editorial Fund (FER) contest, in 2023.
Added to their interests in childhood is the fact that they both lived in Choele Choel, that they know that valley about which they write and illustrate, and that they know its stories.
Both teachers, one of children’s literature at the Roca Teacher Training Institute, and the other of visual arts in public and private schools, have already made several books together, such as “Noel the Giant”, “A Good Sky”, “Lua Angrada”. ”, “The owners of the water”, among others.
But this, “Our Days,” was another kind of challenge.
“The book is based on an idea that has many edges,” explains Rizzuto. I lived for many years in the Middle Valley so that connects me with the tomato, which has a special role in history. The book tells the story of a girl who lives on the farm and who dreams of seeing the sea. And I thought of a girl who has more to do with the people who work the land in the valley today: swallow workers, coming from other places. I thought about that girl, and how work is something cultural, and how imagination also saves you from many things and connects you with play,” says Rizzuto.
A duo challenge
“The process of making it was also like a game. I wrote the story, I sent it to Marina and, because of the characteristics, we thought about making an album book. It was a long process because an album book takes a lot of joint work. It must be taken into account that the image does not repeat the text, for example, and that happened at the beginning. So, we change the text. But we kept noticing that something wasn’t working, so we left it alone for a while, and then we went back, me to write and she to draw.”
Obviously, they succeeded. In the words of the jury that chose them, “with very few words, a girl tells of her daily life and her dreams, in a peaceful climate where nature, the loving presence of her mother, freedom, and play predominate.”
“Clearly an album book, where text and image are inextricably integrated in the construction of meanings. In their simplicity, both languages are strongly suggestive, with subtle winks and hints that invite active reading, to dwell on details, to establish relationships and interact with that fleeting sample of life in those Patagonian farms, which is significant and eloquent in the culture of its inhabitants,” says the jury’s text.
And he adds: “the brevity of the story stands out for its masterful use of the economy of language; and a simplicity that impresses with its depth. The illustrations, far from reiterating what has been said, expand and intensify not only the beauty of the universe offered, but also provide elements about space/time, ethnic traits of the characters and customs of daily life in that area,” they expressed in the ruling. .
As the two authors tell it, it was a work truly done as a duo, in which the words amalgamate (but do not overlap), with beautiful and colorful images of the Valletano landscapes.
“We did it as a team. In addition, the designer contributed a lot of things that we had not seen, such as typography, all elements that gave the album book a sense of experience,” says Rizzuto, who, in addition to being a teacher and writer, has ventured into the audiovisual world.
On the one hand, he writes scripts. In fact, together with Federico Laffite, they made the film “El Verano del Camoatí”, filmed at Choele Choel, which was the winner of the 4th Federal Feature Film Project Competition; He received the “Raymundo Gleyzer” Incaa Project Development Award – 2010 and was selected for the PEC (Film in Construction) of the 3rd Río Negro Proyecta National Festival.
That training in images, says Rizzuto, helped her devise this story that Hernaíz illustrated beautifully.
The jury that chose the book, which is now available, also highlighted “the inclusion of two paratexts, at the beginning and end, well differentiated from the layout, typography and the girl’s voice, in the first person. Without contaminating its artistic value, the first (in the third person) places the story and challenges the reader with the question: “What are your dreams and who do you tell them?”, which shows a position that invites the reader to enter into a process of personal inquiry, beyond that act of reading itself. In the final paragraph, the authors (in the third person plural) appear almost as a collective voice of those who live in the Río Negro Valley. “The literary text, an invitation to enjoyment, adds in another register the invitation to knowledge of the region,” They praise him.
And so it is. The album book, colorful, profound, is really an invitation to enjoy children’s literature, made and thought from here, to recognize yourself in it.
