WOW Review: Volume XVII, Issue 3 • Page 3 of 12 • Worlds of Words

The Duel: A Story about Peace
Written and illustrated by Inês Viegas Oliveira
Translated by Rosa Churcher Clarke
Seven Stories Press, 2024, 56 pp (unpaged)
ISBN: ‎978-1644214022

Inês Viegas Oliveira’s highly illustrated picturebook from Portugal, The Duel: A Story about Peace, begins with a conflict between two men. Readers see a shadow of the men back-to-back with their pistols raised as they pace off from one another. Loosely based on the duel scene in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Mr. Rostov, the “enemy,” is a possible reference to Nikolai Rostov, a character in that book. The other man becomes the protagonist who shares his hurt feelings within hearing range of his enemy: “Your insults pierced and injured my ears, my eardrums, my heart, and places even deeper within me that you won’t find in any anatomy book.” On the next page, as Mr. Rostov disappears off the page, we see just one character as he continues to pace off and then walks away from the duel.

With brief print and several wordless double-page spreads, the remainder of the story follows the protagonist as he walks through forest and town sharing his internal dialogue as he thinks or talks out loud about his predicament. He wonders if Mr. Rostov ever puts himself in someone else’s shoes or if his enemy thinks the protagonist has lost his nerve and is running away from the fight. As he goes along, he realizes he has lost his purpose and arrives at a place where “the sun is shining and the breeze is gentle.” When he realizes his enemy is really his friend, he invites Mr. Rostov to put down his weapons. Finally, in a letter delivered by white birds, the protagonist invites his friend to join him in this peaceful place.

The artwork carries the book’s messages in an evolving palate from monochromatic pages to bold saturated color that adds depth to the story line. Beginning with scant detail, Oliveira’s images become more and more detailed as the protagonist’s thoughts deepen and his self-understanding expands. Reviewers have compared Oliveira’s expressionistic use of color and form to that of Paul Klee.

The Duel appeared on the 2025 USBBY Outstanding International Books List in the 3rd to 5th grade list. Another book on the 2025 USBBY list, What Makes Us Human, originally written in Portuguese and translated into English by the author Victor D. O. Santos and illustrated by Anna Forlati (2023), could provide a powerful pairing with The Duel. In this book, Santos makes the case for language being the trait that makes people human. Language is used to show love and express pain. Santos provides examples of how communication, books, and history connect people across time and space. He notes the number of languages that have existed and how when they die, culture dies with them. In The Duel, the protagonist seems to be talking to his opponent even though very shortly the other man is out of earshot. Still, the protagonist continues to talk aloud, using language to deal with his anger and sense of betrayal, eventually “talking” himself into a calm and peaceful place. The central importance of language in both books provides food for thought for readers. Similar to Oliveira’s illustrations in The Duel, Anna Forlati’s bold artwork in What Makes Us Human greatly expands the meaning in the print and carries the emotional messages in that book. The images in both books will challenge readers to explore them to make sense of the story.

The 56-page length of The Duel and the number of wordless or nearly wordless pages may require adult reader guidance for 3rd – 5th-grade readers to get the most from this stunning book. According to the USBBY list, preK – 2nd-grade young children are the target readership for What Makes Us Human. Although the illustrations in that book are accessible to younger readers, I believe the sophistication of the themes in that book will be challenging for many readers in that age range. I would share both books with readers in 4th-grade and above.

The Duel can also be paired with other stories, picturebooks, poems, and illustrations focused on peace. Although it may be hard to find, The Big Book for Peace edited by Ann Durell and Marilyn Sachs (1990) would be a perfect companion book for The Duel: A Story about Peace. It includes works by thirty-four authors and artists. Authors such as Katherine Paterson, Lois Lowry, Jean Fritz, Milton Meltzer, and Nancy Willard contributed stories or poems. The book is illustrated by famous children’s book illustrators, including Jerry Pinkney, Paul Zelinsky, Leo and Diane Dillon, and Maurice Sendak.

The Duel: A Story about Peace is Inês Viegas Oliveira’s first published picturebook. Her work was selected for the Illustrators Exhibition of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2020, 2022, and 2023. Oliveira was born in Portugal. She won the 2023 Portuguese National Illustration Prize for this book. The book was translated from Portuguese into English by Rosa Churcher Clarke. Born in Manchester, England and currently living in Lisbon, Clarke works at Planeta Tangerina, a Portuguese publisher, and as a freelance writer.

Judi Moreillon, Tucson, Arizona

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