How Beautiful

The title aptly describes this book – Beautiful indeed!!

Once there was a caterpillar.
He was happy on his leaf.
Actually - leaves! There were lots.
Every day he’d sleep, eat
crawl around, and sleep some more.
It was a good, simple life.
He never questioned anything.

That is until “an Unknown Thing” refers to him as “beautiful”. The caterpillar is riddled with questions as to what beautiful means, and so begins his pursuit to find the true answer. He interrogates the many creatures in his surroundings, a blackbird, a bear, a crow, squirrels, a mouse, a mole and a deer to get their viewpoint, only to discover a diversity of opinions. The blackbird annoyingly comments that these creatures are not really pointing out what is beautiful, but instead what is tasty, useful, fun, shiny, and what is comfortable. Now the caterpillar is truly confused as it seems beauty has many meanings for different creatures. By the end of this charming book, nature’s simple beauty wins an endorsement from all.
The text is written in a playful and engaging style. The lively back and forth between the caterpillar, the other creatures and the blackbird is full of energy and humor. Readers are left with a warm and satisfying ending.

The illustrations in How Beautiful are quite remarkable. The method is explained as being “drawn in five graphite pencil layers, which were then scanned and converted to color digitally”. The result is busy, intricate, stylized artwork with Castrillón making plentiful use of the vivid colours of purple, orange, and blues. The eye wants to pause to take in all the dazzling details.