Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda & His Muse

Alexandria Giardinoand Felicita Sala's poetic, beautifully illustrated picture book is inspired by Ode to the Onion by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). A Junior Library Guild Selection Pablo has a lunch date with his friend Matilde, who shows the moody poet her garden. Where Pablo sees conflict and sadness, Matilde sees love and hope. The story is less a biography of Neruda and his muse, Matilde Urrutia (1912-1985), and more a simple ode to a vegetable that is humble and luminous, dark and light, gloomy and glad, full of grief and full of joy--just like life. Children who love words should warm to Alexandria Giardino's Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda & His Muse . . . In Felicita Sala's vivacious and beautifully detailed drawings, done in colored pencil, Mathilde's smile and Pablo's glum expression give a tender humor to this real-life relationship. --New York Times Gloomy versus hopeful. Therein lies the timeless tension between Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda and his wife-to-be in this lovingly envisioned and supremely handsome book. --San Francisco Chronicle