Pablo Finds a Treasure by Andree Poulin

today’s children storybook summary is

Pablo Finds a Treasure

By Andre Poulin

Illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant

The takeaway: All over the world, children work from an early age to support themselves and their families. Most of them work without pay, miss school, and live in poverty. 

The characters in this book are fictional, but the situation is real.

Theme: Children in poverty, children working, child labor

Plot: Scouring through garbage, a shy boy finds a treasure he must protect from the local bully.

Moral: Do not give up or give in in the face of adversity; instead, find an ingenious way to solve a problem.

Symbolism: The gold chain symbolizes a better life.

Storyline

Pablo is a shy kid, but when it comes to protecting his treasure, he finds ingenious ways no one else has thought of.

Each morning, Pablo and his sister, Sofia, pick up their sticks and bags and leave the shantytown to go to the garbage pit and start digging. They must be there early and wait for the fresh garbage to be dumped out of the trucks. They are scouting for items their mother may be able to sell and buy them dinner for the day. At the pit, there are many people, many of them children, doing the same thing.

Pablo, the little brother, never liked digging through garbage. His sister didn’t like it either, but she must set an example. Pablo dreads the stink, and the crowd, and the flies. Often time he wants to run away. But Sofia holds him tight. They may find a treasure that day, she tells him every morning. They keep digging, and Sofia gets a cut on her hand. She doesn’t pay attention. She also coughs a lot from the gases that rise from the garbage and irritate her throat. Pablo notices these things about his sister.

This morning, they find a blue boot and two wrinkled carrots, which they eat right away. Just as they finish eating, Filthy Face shows up. He is a bully and a thief who has come to demand the items that people find in the garbage. In silence, they give them to him.

While the siblings are hiding, Pablo sees something shiny among potato peels. He riches inside the garbage pile and pulls out a golden chain. For once, their dream has come true, they found a treasure. They sit behind a garbage bin, dreaming of all the things they could buy with the chain. Pablo wants a book; Sofia dreams of chicken for dinner and a bag of candies. Soon, they hear Filthy-Face coming. Sofia wants to hide the golden treasure in her boot, but her brother refuses to give it to her. The bully is now in front of them and he demands they empty their pockets and take off their shoes. He takes everything they have gathered.

Walking back home with her brother, Sofia is crying. When their mother asks what happened, Pablo, making sure no one is around, opens his mouth and pulls out the golden chain. At last, they made it, and he can have his wish.

Characters

Sofia, a determined girl about 8 to 10 years old; Pablo, her little brother, a shy kid; Filthy-Face, a grown-up man, the local bully; and the children’s mother.

Illustration

Gloom hangs over the pages of this book. Isabelle Malenfant, an award-winning illustrator living in Canada, created the graphics in dark colors and broken lines. There’s only a hint of color dotted along the pages, and not even the golden chain is bright and shiny. The graphics fill the pages, with the text fitted in the white spots. Malenfant creates a world of garbage scouring that is frightening and sad.

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Recommended Age: 5 to 8 years old

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Things to Learn

Shantytown – An area of the outskirts of a big city where people live in improvised dwellings made of carton, metal, cloth or plastic. The inhabitants of the shantytowns are very poor, with little or no food, oftentimes, children are forced to work just like Sofia and Pablo.

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