The duel

At a time of war, it’s never too early to teach children to turn their backs on hatred.
Raquel Silva, Time Out magazine, 11/2022

Inês walks off the ice, through cities and mountains, through skies and meadows, across land and sea, and also through the joys and sorrows of life. And how lucky we are to be able to accompany her.

Sara Amado, Prateleira-de-baixo, 21/10/2022

With each new page, we’re presented with unexpected twists and turns. (…) Repeated figures, armies, lead soldier marching bands, jugglers and exhibitionists. (…) With each new page, we’re in a different place; courts, cine-theatres, chandeliers. New dances, new speeds, the ever faster-moving new world. (…) Countryside scenes. Animal islands. Free-roaming cattle. Glances up at the sky, constellations, astrological charts, divinations. Changes in the temperature and weather. Boat trips across a void. Sunset sliding. And flowers, lots of flowers. And many birds, migratory species which carry a message to its place.

Catarina Real, Artecapital, 8/10/2022

Book of the month — Lisbon Cultural Agenda, November 2022

The gradation which substitutes violence for peace, goes side by side with the substitution of the city by nature. In this picturebook, borderless illustration overlaid with details and colours offer us an observational experience, a return and a slowness, all of which breaks the textual reading.

Andreia Brites, revista Blimunda, 12/12/2022

(…) a book about a journey as a dialogue with others, with ourselves and with the world, more than about offence or vengeance. That bookshops will tidy it away in the children’s book section is perhaps an inevitable effect of the market, but that shouldn’t stop readers of other ages untidying it so as to find there the mirror of a world with not enough dialogue and too much bravado – it would be a great shame.
Sara Figueiredo Costa, Expresso, 14/01/2023

In this book, we must emphasise the wise profusion of illustrations, which move from aching sobriety to an explosion of colour and plenitude. There is, indeed, a strong dialogue between the lean text and an intelligent visual representation which forces the reader to savour each moment of fruition in this work.
Rui Marques Veloso, Caminhos de Leitura, April 2023

A book which invites reflection on the absurd nature of conflicts, war, disputes, and which celebrates life and forgiveness.
Rita Pimenta, Público Ímpar, 13/05/2023

When two friends at odds in a wintry place stand back to back and embark on their faces, onde keeps walking into the warm, colorful, collegial spring of Oliveira’s dazzling picture book debut.
The New York Times Book Review, November 2024