There's nothing Pedro would like more than to see the ocean. Living in Bogotá, he's really surprised when his mother gives him a trip to an island for his tenth birthday. There must be pirates there! They say that the water of the sea has seven colours. But then the holiday turns out completely different from what he had expected.
When Pedro finds out why his Dad didn't come along, he runs away, blinded by anger and disappointment. He runs and runs until he finds himself lost in the darkness of the night. Scared and hungry, he meets an old sailor who lives in a hut on the beach and takes the boy in. Interestingly enough, the old man has the same name as an English buccaneer who landed on the Caribbean island many hundreds of years ago … At least that's what a chatty parrot, who says she is no less than 300 years old, tells him.
In this finely illustrated adventure with Pedro we experience happiness and pain in equal measure. To be able to find yourself, you have to get lost first.

The author

Melba Escobar de Nogales was born in Cali, Colombia, in 1976. She studied literature at the Universidad de los Andes in the country's capital Bogotá and published her first book in 2007. Das Glück ist ein Fisch is her first children's book – the only one so far. Melba Escobar is a journalist too. She has written essays on diving expeditions off the coast of Colombia, amongst other things. She is also a columnist for the Colombian daily newspapers El País and El Espectador. She lives and works in Bogotá and has two children, Matilde and Rodrigo.

The illustrator

Elizabeth Builes was born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1987. She studied visual arts at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and then worked as a scientific illustrator in the Universidad de Antioquia's herbarium, before turning to illustrating books. In 2013 she won the publisher Tragaluz's illustration prize. Since then she has illustrated various books for children and youths. Elizabeth Builes lives in Medellín.