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INPRIMATU
We're all different
  • Marco Berrtoni Carrara :: Sara, who are you? Images:: Chiana Carrer Pictures of Pames-Kalandradaka pages in ::27 The price: 13:13
Xabier Etxaniz Erle 2011ko martxoaren 08a
Sara, nor zara?
It's a very special book, Sara, who are you? this; by the way it is narrated, by what is suggested, by the treatment of images... “A shadow has slipped on the wall and disappeared. ‘Who is it?’ A sound fills the room and then goes off. ‘What is it?’” begins the book; the narrator is a child, a narrator who later answers these questions posed at the beginning: “This is Sarah, my sister.” And it is precisely about the little girl Sara, what she does, or does not do, what she is like, what her behavior is often, and a lot of questions that her brother will explain to us.

The reader, however, can immediately see that Sara is special, the girl, as her brother said, can spend hours standing still, without talking to anyone, without playing, without listening, without looking... In fact, Sara “always lives in her world, alone”. We have an autistic girl as the protagonist of this book and the narrator will tell us what she is like, she will help us to know her behavior, what she is like, what she thinks, how she will act... Know this because we do not

know. And unlike many books dealing with subjects like this, here the narrator expresses his concerns and fears: “Sometimes it scares me!” the narrator tells us almost screaming, but right after that, he also says: “All of a sudden, he calms down. Then he comes to me, caresses me with his smile, embraces me, and suffocates me with love... Infinite love, different from that of

others.” This concern expressed in the text, but also cariño and closeness, is expressed in the images. The illustrations in the book do not have a vivid and strong color; there is a kind of wallpaper as background, which represents leaves and flowers and being of many colors are quite modest; next to it we have the protagonists represented in a single color, and also as shadows at the beginning, or visible – when we can see Sara sitting in front of her back behind the girl. The illustrator, Chiara Carrer, who has gone beyond what the text says by expressing the message of the book. This book, Sara, has been beautifully invented by

Fernando Rey using our Basque word game, who are you? What has become is one of those that, after reading it, we go round our heads; it is not a gentle and tender book; it is neither raw nor vinegar; because it is like the situation that reflects it, and sometimes, as the narrator says, “It makes me depressed (Sara)” but in accordance with the message that appears at the end of the book, “there are no two equal people”: and Sara, a reader, is a person like you and me.