Poetry
Cuentos pintados para niños
Not translated into English
Rafael Pombo · 1867
Synopsis
An old woman complains of having nothing to eat, and the list of what she does have fills the whole poem. A well-dressed tadpole leaves his mother's house despite her ban, goes off to dance and meets the cat. A greedy cat swears never to steal again, until the next kitchen. A shepherdess loses her sheep and falls asleep. The collection is made up of such stories in verse, short, rhymed to be read aloud, and almost all end badly with a smile.
Context
Written in New York for the Appleton house, which wanted English nursery rhymes in Spanish: the author made something else of it, new pieces whose names, rhythms and images are his own, so that the adaptation amounts to creation. The whole forms twelve illustrated booklets, seven in verse, three in prose and two mixing the two. The same house issued a second collection of the same kind two years later. The best-known pieces in the country come from it.
Who it is for
A short collection, in Spanish, with no French translation. These verses are meant to be spoken aloud; read in silence, they lose half of what they are.
Prizes and reception
Sixty-five thousand dozens sold in Spanish America within four years, and a text that Colombian schoolchildren still learn today.