In March 2024, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers will publish the English version of What Makes Us Human, a lyrical picture book about the importance of language and culture. Today World Kid Lit co-editor Jackie Friedman Mighdoll talks to the author Victor Santos.

Jackie FM: What Makes Us Human has had an incredible journey from dPICTUS winner, to a special UNESCO partnership, publication around the world, and a White Ravens 2023 selection. Can you tell us how this came about?

VS: As a professional linguist, picture book author, and father to two trilingual and multicultural children, I felt I was in a lucky position to write and create a picture book about the value of all languages and their vital connection to the people and cultures behind them. I also wanted to make people aware of the fact that at least half of the world’s estimated 7,168 living languages are expected to become extinct by 2100, which is a loss to all of humanity. 

Both Anna Forlati (the illustrator) and I still cannot believe the success What Makes Us Human is having and all the languages it is being translated into (19 at the time of this interview). We are so happy that the book and its message are resonating with readers in so many parts of the world. 

What Makes Us Human had already been licensed into a few languages – Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Basque, Galician, Catalan, Asturian, and Korean – before UNESCO ever heard of it. And when the UNESCO Chief of Section who is leading the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022 – 2032) read it, he proposed that UNESCO become a co-publisher of the book in as many future editions as possible, as a way to draw attention to their Decade and also increase the visibility of the book. 

Since then, most publishers who have licensed What Makes Us Human have decided to publish it in partnership with UNESCO, including Eerdmans Books for Young Readers (EBYR) for the English edition. 

Finally, the fact that the book was selected by the International Youth Library (in Munich, Germany) for their prestigious White Ravens catalogue in 2023 also gave the book a nice boost in terms of interest from foreign publishers. 

JFM: The first version was published in your native country, Brazil. Did you do any of the translations to other languages? If so, what challenges did you find? 

VS: I tend to write all my picture book manuscripts both in English and in Brazilian Portuguese to ensure there are no obvious issues when translating the text into another language. 

For What Makes Us Human, I really wanted the first edition of the book to be published in Brazil, so I pitched the book with my Portuguese text to a publisher (Editorial Abacatte) that had already published another book of mine in Brazil (My Dad, My Rock, coming out in the USA in March 2024 from Scribble). They decided to license it and were the first one to do so. Later, when the book was pitched to EBYR, it had my own English text as well, so I guess you could say I’m the translator of both the Portuguese and English editions. 

Although I did not do the translations into the other languages, all publishers have been kind enough to send me their proposed translations before they sent out the files to the printer. For languages I can understand to a decent extent — such as Italian, Spanish, Galician, or French — I have been able to directly participate in some of the discussions regarding specific translation choices. For other languages I have no knowledge of — commonly found languages such as Arabic and Korean — I usually consult with native speakers of these languages in my personal or professional network and have them look at both the English version and the translation. Finally, for languages such as Mapuzugun (an Indigenous language of Chile), for which I do not know any native speakers and for which there are unfortunately no easily available translation tools, I have no input at all into the translation process. 

Several interesting things have surfaced during translation into all these languages:

What Makes Us Human is written as a lyrical riddle in which the first-person narrator (theme) of the book does not reveal itself until the very last page. Clues are scattered throughout the text and illustrations. When I wrote the manuscript, I carefully selected the words in a way that would either lead readers towards an ambiguous path or make them think of one thing, when in fact the book is about something else. Not revealing the answer to the riddle too early is something I strived for since it makes the reading experience more engaging.  

As many readers will know, Romance languages (e.g., Portuguese, French, Italian, Spanish, etc.) have grammatical gender, and each noun as well as the adjectives that agree with them must be marked for gender. That means that once readers know the gender of the first-person narrator, they can already eliminate many of the possibilities that English speakers would not (note: English does not show grammatical gender on nouns and adjectives). Also, different possibilities of who the narrator might be will be triggered in the mind of readers depending on what specific adjective a translator decides to use in their language since each word has different associations in each language. In the end, no matter what the translators choose, the riddle must work well in all languages, so it’s quite a challenging but fun exercise.

JFM: Have you seen the other international editions? Are there any interesting differences? Can you share any stories about seeing your work published in different languages?

VS: I get to see and comment on the final proofs of all editions before they go to the printer, and I also receive finished author copies of each edition. Of all editions I’ve seen to date, the most interesting — in terms of doing something different — are perhaps the Italian, Arabic, and Korean ones. 

The Italian edition (to be published by Terre di Mezzo in early 2024) has a beautiful yet completely different cover from all the other editions. They also changed the title of the book from What Makes Us Human to The Most Beautiful Thing (“La cosa più preziosa”). Additionally, they are the only publisher that decided to reveal the answer to the riddle on the back cover in the book blurb. All these decisions were made to better fit the Italian market. 

In the Arabic edition, the great majority of the illustrations had to be flipped sideways since Arabic is read right to left. This, of course, is quite common when translating picture books into Arabic, but I did not know that at the time and found it really interesting. Going through the Arabic book is a unique experience since it opens and reads right to left. 

Lastly, in the Korean edition (published by Hanbit Media in 2023), they added a marketing sleeve that envelops the book and contains, among other things, blurbs written by well-known people in South Korea. Some of the people who provided a blurb for the book were Kim Eana, a famous lyricist behind many famous K-pop songs and Jihyun Kim, author/illustrator of The Depth of the Lake and the Height of the Sky, a picture book I really enjoy and have in my personal picture book library. 

Our Korean publisher bumped into Anna and me at the dPICTUS stand during the 2023 Bologna Book Fair and was so excited to meet us that they asked to take pictures with us holding the book. Later that day, they tracked us down again and gifted us beautiful silk bookmarks. 

It’s a great feeling seeing and holding the book in all these different languages. Every time I receive a package with author copies of a new edition, I stop everything I’m doing and open it straight away. With every new language, I know that the book and its themes are reaching more and more people. And when it’s a language with fewer speakers, such as Mapuzugun or Asturian (spoken in Spain), I feel extra happy, since the publication of the book in that language directly contributes to the preservation of the language.   

JFM: Can you tell us more about UNESCO’s International Decade of Indigenous Languages? Will there be a version in any of the indigenous languages? (I’ve been enjoying seeing the bilingual books in Indigenous languages in Canada.)

VS: The United Nations General Assembly declared 2022 – 2032 the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Over this period of ten years, the United Nations (especially through the leadership of UNESCO) aims to create sustainable and effective changes in social, cultural, and governmental dynamics to increase awareness about the importance of and the need to preserve Indigenous languages around the world, many of which are severely endangered, with only a small number of speakers. Some Indigenous languages and peoples can be seen represented in What Makes Us Human. Indigenous languages are absolutely fascinating and complex, and I’ve had the pleasure of studying some of them during my bachelor’s degree work in Brazil, which focused on the Brazilian Indigenous language Xavante (A’uwẽ, as seen in the book). 

What Makes Us Human has already been licensed into two Indigenous languages — Mapuzugun in Chile and Hñähñu in Mexico. Both will be published in a bilingual edition, with Spanish being the other language. I would love to see the book published into as many Indigenous languages as possible. The existence of children’s books in these languages increases Indigenous children’s pride in their own language and culture and creates written resources in these languages that can be directly used to help revitalize them. 

Indeed, Canada has many Indigenous languages, and I really hope we can soon see the book available in many of them, either in a monolingual or a bilingual edition. 

JFM: The book sets up a mystery or question: “I am everywhere. In every country, every city, every school, and every home.” Have you had the chance to read the book with kids? I’m curious at what point they guess the answer?

VS: When I had a draft for What Makes Us Human that I was happy with, I read it to several friends and a few children (one of them being my own son, who is 7 years old). As I read each page, I would ask them who they thought the narrator was. It was very interesting to see how they would change their mind as new clues were presented in the text. I wanted to make sure that the words and metaphors I chose would elicit enough interesting possibilities in their minds while also not revealing the answer to the riddle too early. None of the kids or adults could guess the answer before the final page when I only read the text to them, which was good news. That helped me, Anna Forlati, and our designer (Daniel Cabral) fine-tune how we wanted to insert clues into the illustrations. 

In the illustrated version, most adults either do not guess at all or only guess about 2/3 into the book since the illustrations also provide several clues for those attentive readers. I haven’t yet had the chance to interact with children who are reading the final, illustrated version, since the book only comes out in the USA/Canada in March 2024, and I haven’t yet been able to participate in live events for the book outside the USA. I really can’t wait to see kids’ reactions and how early they may be able to guess the theme of the book.  For readers here who end up reading the book to their kids or students, feel free to get in touch with me on Instagram and let me know! 

JFM: I know you’ve studied picture books from around the world as you’ve worked on your books. Can you share some of your favorites? 

Absolutely! I love reading picture books as well as more academically-driven books about picture books, with Martin Salisbury’s Children’s Picture Books: The Art of Visual Storytelling being my favorite one in the books about picture books category. 

For me, reading tons of good-quality picture books and identifying those I connect with or admire the most, and why that is the case, is a great way to speed up my learning process when it comes to picture-booking and better understanding the kinds of stories and techniques I tend to lean towards. 

I have an Excel sheet where I give a grade to every picture book I read, and I then buy a copy of all those I give a grade of 9 or higher. Many of my favorite books are listed on my author website (link below) but here are some of them. The ones I am listing are all English editions except for the very last one, a French book with no English edition yet. Those with an asterisk were originally published in a language other than English:

The Night Gardener – The Fan Brothers

Nothing in Common – Kate Hoefler (A) & Corinna Luyken (I)

The Forest* – Riccardo Bozzi (A), Violeta Lapiz (I), Valerio Vidal (I)

The Longest Letsgoboy – Derick Wilder (A), Cátia Chien (I)

Small in the City – Sydney Smith

Du Iz Tak? – Carson Ellis

I am the Subway* – Kim Hyo-eun 

The Big Question* – Leen Van Den Berg (A), Kaatje Vermeire (I)

The Sour Cherry Tree – Naseem Hrab (A), Nahid Kazemi (I)

My Father’s Arms are a Boat* – Stein Erik Lunde (A), Øyvind Torseter  (I)

The Little Barberian* – Renato Moriconi

Du Fond de la classe* – Sébastien Joanniez (A), Pauline Kerleroux (I)

If readers would like to see more of my favorite books, they can find them on my author website. If they would like to say “hi”, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram. Thank you so much for this interview, Jackie! 

Victor D.O. Santos is a linguist and children’s author who has lived in five different countries and studied 10 different languages. My Dad, My Rock, his English-language debut (Scribble), was a Kirkus Best Book of 2022. Originally from Brazil, Santos now lives in Des Moines, Iowa, where he and his Ukrainian wife are raising two multicultural, multilingual children. Follow him on Instagram.