The title of Julie Costa Langley’s semi-bilingual (Portuguese) children’s book, What Is Saudade? captured my attention for many reasons but at first only because of the beautiful wistful cover of a young girl resting her arms on a car window looking out with a dreaming far-off look in her eyes. The car is taking her on a ride along a country road on the green island of Terceira filled with hydrangea, where the story of discovery takes place. The cover illustration it a fitting symbol for the journey young Rosie takes from her home in the United States for a visit to her  family’s ancestral home in the Azores.

At the start, Rosie only knows about the Azores through her parents’ stories of missing the home of their own childhoods. She is curious about her mother’s tears after a long-distance telephone call with her mother, Rosie’s Avózinha. “It’s just saudade,” explains her Mãe when Rosie asks for the meaning of saudade.

At this point, saudade is not something Rosie can feel, having never experienced it.

Many have tried to define the meaning of saudade; everything from “something only the Portuguese feel” to some form of longing for a past that never actually existed to other in-between definitions.

Julie Costa Langley’s book does not attempt to give a cerebral definition or explanation of saudade but rather relies on the storytelling to show the reader what saudade is really like. Something which Rosie only comes to understand and “feel” through experience by the end of the trip when she is returning home. By then she is looking out of the window of an airplane and the expression on her face, the tear coming out of her eye, shows us that she now knows what it is.

I love how the story closes, and for the sake of letting you, the reader, discover it for yourself, I will just say that it moved me in my own connections with saudade.

The text, a tale of travel and discovery of the island’s beauty while in search of family, connection, and a sense of a home away from home, comes to life with beautiful illustrations by Mai S. Kemble. She really captured the look and feel of the Açores I know.

The illustrations of island scenes are particularly evocative and given that her work was inspired by photographs and research only, she got it spot on.

Although written in simple direct language for the sake of a child’s understanding, I hope this book will resonate with anyone who has an Azorean background and with those who are interested in exploring a bit of the Azorean islands, especially Terceira, where the story takes place.

What is Saudade? is available at: https://solo.to/julielangley