An Emotional Book

I give you my heart

I give you my heart is an emotional book, a book that aims to excite (and publishers know that on the cover insert a heart in the title) and sometimes books of this type burn with a rhetoric as obvious impacting the ephemeral feeling of a second, enthusiastically, but leaving behind a bitterness for the smallness that they can give to the reader.

But I find that the heart, in the title of this book, does not honestly return the size of a book translated with intensity and very careful linguistic attention by no little bit 'less than by Vivian Lamarque and illustrated with inspiration and virtuosity by a young illustrator dutch, playing with a die-cutting idea, a dreamy, photographic and magical book. Add us that the subject is Chinese - a few days ago we celebrated the Chinese New Year - and you understand that the book deserved to meet and talk about it.

This is the story of Yuto, a 5-6 year old Chinese boy, of whom we only know that he loved to live ("Yuto jumped out of bed, the sheet like a parachute, and ran away. A special day that began ") that one day meets a little old man: he is surrounded by old objects, dust, shadows and gives him a box.

It's my gift to you. The child nodded gratefully. All you need is here, in this little box.

The box is closed, the old man disappears and the years pass, until the seventh birthday as if by magic the box agrees to hatch revealing a seed, heart-shaped.
"The child planted the seed in a large vase. But nothing happened. "Be patient", the mother told him, "some things are invisible to the eye". "But the gentleman said that ..." "If nothing happens," said the father, "maybe nothing now you need" But it was the beginning of something big ».

The plant turns out to be a tree and with its times it demands space and attentions that are always different, but above all it requires that we take care of it with love.

"Where there is love, everything grows" and the tree reciprocates fruitful love by sheltering, guarding and accompanying Yuto season after season, year after year.

"One day a girl came to sit next to him. "Because you're always here all alone!" She asked him. "Only?" He smiled at her. "Even if you were not here now, I would not be alone. "Look and listen with the heart We are never alone. Never"". Yuto becomes a husband and then a father, under the eyes of his friend, tree until life sets, for everyone: "The day when Miyu [his wife] died, Yuto went to the tree. There, where they met, he said goodbye. He was not alone ». Then one day from the branches of the now venerable tree a seed, heart-shaped, plana in the womb of Yuto: "Yuto closed his eyes and listened. And he nodded his head. " The next day next to the tree, an unknown child received a small box from Yuto's hands: "All you need is here, in this little box."

The next morning, when the boy came back to ask the man how to open the box, the tree had fallen. Then he sat on the trunk and waited. He put the box on the window sill. And he waited

The narration follows a marked emotional rhythm, made of short, incisive and effective sentences, but in its complexity does not take away the pleasure of a simple but coherent story. The theme of the tree as a symbol of unconditional love is declined, in my opinion, with an interesting accent that highlights how loving educhi care is transmitted, without time being a measure sufficient to measure it. The adoptive experience of the translator emerges, in my opinion, in the careful choice of some words and expressions that reaffirm that the bonds of love are fundamental. The illustrations of Sassafras De Bruyn (which has the name of a tree!) Complex and multifaceted look like photographs where the condensation of the air and the shadows create environments from which one feels enveloped, at times, however, the gesture of the brush on the collage imposes itself by showing the manual skills of the artist. The punches are complex and not only the tangle of the branches, but also windows and some objects create a link between the pages in a sort of "shadow" embroidery that favors the flow of history, without rhetorically stopping it in immobile pictures. The overall effect is melancholic and dreamy, certainly more appreciated by adults than by children, but not incomprehensible to even the youngest. At the end of the reading sighs and closes the eyes. The overall effect is melancholic and dreamy, certainly more appreciated by adults than by children, but not incomprehensible to even the youngest. At the end of the reading sighs and closes the eyes. The overall effect is melancholic and dreamy, certainly more appreciated by adults than by children, but not incomprehensible to even the youngest. At the end of the reading sighs and closes the eyes.

An exciting and inspired book that will be an occasion to greet and remember those everlasting messages that should shape everyone's life: I give you my heart.