I was enamored with The Mango Tree / La mata de mango, written and illustrated by Edel Rodriguez, from the endpapers (an elegant leaf-and-mango pattern that could be a wallpaper pattern). In this wordless picture book, two friends spend their days in the safety and comfort of a backyard mango tree on their island home. A vicious storm hits, carrying off the mango tree in its pot along with one of the boys. After a choppy journey at sea, the protagonist lands on a new island filled with opportunities for new friendships, which he fosters with the help of a new mango tree, though he never forgets his first best friend. Rodriguez’s stunning woodblock and digital illustrations are whimsical and detailed, rendered in a limited but saturated color palette that makes you feel like you could pluck a juicy mango from the page. 

What I love most about this book is the way that Rodriguez builds tension in his wordless narrative, using smooth shifts between perspectives; with the turn of a page you are in among the leaves of the mango tree as the two boys teeter dangerously on branches to try and reach a tasty fruit. Then the view zooms out as the boys, now teeny-tiny, fly kites that swoop toward you on a perfect day. Once the storm that carries the protagonist out to sea hits, you are right there with him as the tree blows horizontally and then rises to the crest of a wave. Rodriguez’s impeccable sense of composition gently guides the reader’s experience through it all. How could you not pause an extra moment on the spread where the boys nap in the tree in perfect symmetry, a vision of calm before the storm? The drama of the storm always points toward the right, urging you turn pages. Directly after the storm’s climax, Rodriguez offers a peaceful reprieve as the tree-turned-boat in the center of the page rests on a placid sea; the boy’s expression conveys both fear and awe at an encounter with toothy sea creatures, flying fish float serenely in the sky, and a mango glows before the moon. 

The motif of the glowing mango maintains a sense of unity across the various spreads and with the boy’s homeland. Though Rodriguez’s style relies on bold colors and shapes, subtle details add to the story’s poignancy: in the back matter, a bird carries a mango from a new tree to the protagonist’s friend whom he was forced to leave behind. The delivery occurs next to Rodriguez’s author’s note (in Spanish and English), which offers a clear inspiration for the story but keeps details about his experience vague, emphasizing the points of connection that were significant for him at this time. This allows readers to relate to the story more broadly and impose their own interpretations on the text, whether those are stories of literal migration across the sea or the weathering of more metaphorical storms.  

The Mango Tree/La mata de mango offers real action and hopeful resolution — all conveyed through the illustrations. Each page draws me in fully every time I read it, and I hope it does the same for the Caldecott Committee.

[Read The Horn Book Magazine's review of The Mango Tree / La mata de mango]