Waterloo & Trafalgar
Olivier Tallec’s 2012 wordless picture book, Waterloo & Trafalgar, portrays two men, one in blue and one in orange, who are separated by walls and watch each other suspiciously behind their telescopes throughout the seasons, embroiled in conflict. Not until they have a common cause do they stop fighting. At the end of the book, we see that the two warring men both live inside an enclosed area, situated within a beautiful blue and orange park that neither of them appears to see.
The amusing and colorful line drawings tell a multi-layered story, raising such questions as: Why do people engage in conflict? What is the point of war? Is compromise always possible? What does it take to trust another person? Another country? What do we really know about each other, and about the world?
Fantastic!