Word Family

Familia de Palabras

Sandra Siemens & Yael Frankel

Claraboya | march 2023 | 64 pages | 21 x 21 cm | hardcover

A girl seems to be looking for words in a game of meanings and memories, but we soon realize that these unexpected semantic relationships also tell us about the possibility of creation that words have, their ability to delimit our world defining who we are.

Can we create our own personal or family story from what we name? And what happens with the things we don´t have or we cannot name? The end of this book is all about the possibility of change and the power of words.

Rights Sold To

  • Brazilian Portuguese
For foreign rights, contact us

Awards

  • White Ravens 2023
  • Award Fundación Cuatrogatos 2024
  • Selected for the BRAW Amazing Bookshelf | Bologna Ragazzi Awards 2024
  • Sandra Siemens: nominee Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2023

  • Yael Frankel: winner Bologna Ragazzi Award Fiction 2023

  • WORD FAMILY, by Sandra Siemens & Yael Frankel, is in the White Ravens Catalogue 2023! It surely deserves it: congratulations @claraboWhich words can be combined, for example, with »house«, »train«, or »school«? Does »cabbage« go with »cat« (due to the colour of its eyes) or »flies« (because it likes to hunt insects) or »rice« (which it scratches out of its fur after eating)? »Ah, no«, says the narrator, »I don’t even have a cat…« And that is how this charming book continues. By letting thoughts wander and associations bubble up, Sandra Siemens gives the reader a taste for the riches and the ossibilities of language in a surprisingly simple way. Yael Frankel’s gentle, enigmatic illustrations in no way lag behind the witty text. At times sixteen square, roughly sketched and thematically quite unrelated pictures fill the entire page, at other times a single picture is surrounded by lots of space, inviting further thoughts. By using different techniques and styles, by free association and the use of collage, the main idea of this book is realised in a congenial manner: Whether in text or image, there are no limits to the creativity of language.

    White Ravens 2023 Catalogue