cover image Almost True

Almost True

Clarice Lispector, trans. from the Portuguese by Benjamin Moser, illus. by Carla Irusta. New York Review Books, $19.95 (48p) ISBN 978-1-68137-897-8

In a rollicking translated fable about a fig tree that endeavors to outsmart a flock of hens, Brazilian novelist Lispector casts as narrator dog Ulisses, who can “bark out a story that seems almost like make-believe and almost true.” The fig tree, which cannot bear fruit and is resentful of the egg-laying hens, makes a pact with a witch, who enables the tree to shine. This brightness confuses the chickens, resulting in their laying eggs at night, which the tree plots to sell and get rich (“She didn’t pay the hens.... It was nothing but slavery”). In a Click, Clack, Moo–like plot twist, the chickens band together to subvert the scheme. Regular interjections from Ulisses capture the cacophony of a sunny garden featuring a singing golden bird (“pirilim-pim-pim”) and bursting jabuticaba fruits (“plique-ti”). Irusta, working in scribbly, expressive lines, draws laughs via chickens looking by turns baffled and baleful in this folktale-feeling story with a good-natured ending. Ages 5–9. (Apr.)