Ode to an Onion

**Alexandria Giardinoand Felicita Sala's poetic, beautifully illustrated picture book is inspired by *Ode to the Onion* by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973).** **A Junior Library Guild Selection** Pablo has a lunch date with his friend Matilde, who shows the moody poet her garden. Where Pablo sees conflict and sadness, Matilde sees love and hope. The story is less a biography of Neruda and his muse, Matilde Urrutia (1912-1985), and more a simple ode to a vegetable that is humble and luminous, dark and light, gloomy and glad, full of grief and full of joy-just like life. **"Children who love words should warm to Alexandria Giardino's *Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda & His Muse* . . . In Felicita Sala's vivacious and beautifully detailed drawings, done in colored pencil, Mathilde's smile and Pablo's glum expression give a tender humor to this real-life relationship." -*New York Times*** **"Gloomy versus hopeful. Therein lies the timeless tension between Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda and his wife-to-be in this lovingly envisioned and supremely handsome book." -*San Francisco Chronicle***