How to raise readers in the age of screens? Alejandra López-Cano’s commitment with “El mundo de Gricín”

Every night, before going to sleep, the Peruvian writer Alejandra López-Cano Sarria would read a story to Emilia, her five-year-old daughter. From that ritual, “El mundo de Gricín” was born, the children’s book she presented at the Lima International Book Fair. There, she proposes a conversation about friendship, imagination, and self-esteem.

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“It talks about self-love”, summarizes López-Cano Sarria. Throughout the journey, the pencil Gricín discovers friendships that help him overcome fear without erasing what makes him unique. In the strokes of the Peruvian illustrator Majo Baquerizo, the protagonist of the novel, a young pencil who lives happily in a universe where everything is gray, walks through the world with fresh eyes. As he advances on this journey, he meets other pencils who, from their own ways of understanding life, color his surroundings with lessons.

“The book conveys a message of self-love: ‘Love yourself as you are, with your flaws and virtues.’ It also talks about those genuine friendships that appear throughout life and help the light we carry inside shine even brighter, without ceasing to be who we are”, she explains.

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Amarillín, one of the characters, was inspired by Emilia and her restless personality. Azulina and part of Rojín refer to the writer’s mother, Augusta Sarria, a Peruvian visual artist, with whom she grew up surrounded by paintings and art classes. After reading the book, it was she who pointed out a paradox: although the story begins in a gray universe, Alejandra had always lived among colors. That observation allowed her to discover that, perhaps unintentionally, she was also writing about her own childhood.

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In a country where reading rates remain low, López-Cano believes that children’s books also serve a formative function. Because parents who read to their children are also opening family conversations about trust, affection, among other topics. Likewise, in the face of the predominance of screens at an early age, the writer defends imagination as an irreplaceable exercise. “Screens already give everything to the child; reading allows them to imagine,” she maintains.

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A reaction to the reading of “El mundo de Gricín” already showed its author that each child finds a different meaning in the story. She recalls the case of a classmate of her daughter, who, after reading the story, told his mother: “Mom, I feel like I am like Gricín.” The boy identified with the protagonist’s fear and, upon finishing the book, understood that he could also dare to take small steps outside his comfort zone. “He saw the story’s ending and realized that, perhaps, if he dared a little more to do things, he could surprise himself,” she concludes.

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