Gustavo, the Shy Ghost (The World of Gustavo)

Product Information

As a fun fact, in the graveyard scenes, you can find the names of my late grandparents engraved in the tombstones – Chuta, Lupe, Rolando and Tuto. Throughout the whole story, there was an authentic sense of someone knowing and celebrating Mexican culture and the vernacular.

Drago won the prestigious Klaus Flagge Prize for this entrancing, funny, empathetic and original picture book. Flavia: Hmmm, this is an interesting question… I am a fan of Bosch and Pieter Brueghel who are known by painting incredibly detailed scene, but also some Mexican folk art tends to have lots of details and colour, I guess I must have picked up something from them! She has an MA in Children's Book Illustration from Cambridge School of Art and was shortlisted for the Sebastian Walker Award. I have even talked the head into a little revamp of the library so that we can display them properly! Flavia: Learning how to use colour has been a slow process, I remember that on my first illustrations I tended to use all the colours of the rainbow and all the textures at the same time – what a nightmare!

I would love to do some collaborations, or to illustrate someone else’s text, however at the moment my hands are quite full with all my PhD reading and experimentation. I was at my last school for 4 years and we had ********* book fairs every term – and every term, I was disappointed by the narrow range of books.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Mat: Are there are any contemporary artists/illustrators whose work you admire so much that you think everyone should encounter them?As an adult, I immediately loved it—in college, I threw what would have been a really fun Halloween party for my work friends, who all said they would come and told me literally just hours before how excited they were…but when it came time for the party, literally no one showed up except my 3 closer friends. Really love this book - has a really lovely story about a shy ghost, and it doesn't go the expected direction of him changing to make friends, but the friends coming to him, when he shares what he enjoys. This story deftly weaves themes of inclusion, friendship and being true to yourself with striking artwork inspired by the author/illustrator’s upbringing in Mexico City. Some of my favourite characters in the book are Katerina the ‘Catrina’, the elegant skull girl in pink, based upon an engraving by Guadalupe Posada; Alma, the invisible girl who happens to be the prettiest monster in town; and the witch – with a secret name that I cannot reveal yet – who will feature as the main character on my next picture book! I know that this is not how the story ends – at some point I even considered that Gustavo could be a real boy disguised as a ghost – but as the plot evolved the sheet joke became irrelevant as Gustavo was already showing his true self.

I haven't charted out my visits for the summer term, but I'm sure there are several in the south) and thanks so much for being so fantastic! Not only is Gustavo the Shy Ghost set within the Day of the Dead, but the warmth between the characters, the interest and unique storytelling delight!

In one hand we had the black and white Universal Monsters tribute and a nostalgic ghost, which made me think of vintage pictures in sepia tones; on the other hand, we have the really bright Mexican colours.