Wordless picturebook · Book-object · Brazil · 2009
Tchibum!
Concept by Daniel Kondo & Gustavo Borges
Illustrations and visual narrative by Daniel Kondo
Edited by Augusto Massi and Isabel Lopes Coelho
Cosac Naify · São Paulo · 2009
A child’s first dive becomes a story told without words — through bodies, water, sequence, color and the physical act of turning the page.
The book
One jump. A whole narrative.
Tchibum! follows a very small event: a child enters a swimming pool, discovers the water, plays, floats and returns to the edge under an adult’s attentive gaze.
There is no verbal narration inside the book. Gesture, direction, distance and page sequence carry the story. Each image hands the movement to the next one, so reading becomes close to following a body through water.
The project was conceived jointly by Daniel Kondo and Brazilian Olympic swimmer Gustavo Borges. Their starting point was a child’s first experience in the water; Kondo developed the illustrations and visual narrative as a compact sequence built for very young readers and shared reading.
The book-object
The pool begins on the cover.
Small scale, rounded corners, moisture-resistant pages and a pull-tab cover make handling part of the reading experience. The first action is already physical: pull, reveal, enter.
A book made to be held, pulled and followed.
The original Cosac Naify catalogue describes a 15 × 10.5 cm, 24-page, four-color edition with a “pull here” tab. The cover image extends when the tab is moved, turning the object itself into the first small surprise of the story.
That physical solution became central to the book’s later critical reception. The Bologna jury read Tchibum! as an art-book transformed into something a child can actively use and play with.
Before the first page is turned, the reader has already made the book move.
Visual language
Water sets the grammar.
The story is constructed from sequence and bodily perception. Cropping, scale and transparency make the reader alternate between watching the pool and feeling almost inside it.
01
Sequence
The action passes from one image to the next. A jump becomes a fall, a splash, immersion, floating and return without the support of explanatory text.
02
Body
Arms, hands, feet and faces act as narrative signs. Cropped bodies make scale and proximity part of the child’s experience of the page.
03
Surface
Blue fields, pool grids, reflections and transparent layers keep shifting the point of view: above water, below water, at the edge, in motion.
Inside the book
A first swim, frame by frame.
The complete Behance archive preserves the original project presentation. These images show how the book moves between splash, suspension, contact, floating and return.
International recognition
BolognaRagazzi Award.
2010
New Horizons
Special Mention
A Brazilian wordless picturebook recognized in Bologna.
Tchibum! received a Special Mention in the New Horizons category at the 2010 BolognaRagazzi Award. The official Bologna archive credits Gustavo Borges for the text, Daniel Kondo for the illustrations, and Cosac Naify as publisher. The concept of the project was developed jointly by Daniel Kondo and Gustavo Borges.
The distinction placed the project among the books singled out for extending the visual, cultural and material possibilities of children’s publishing beyond the dominant markets.
The jury emphasized the book’s playability, its joyful Pop Art energy and the almost cinematic movement created by its pages — a book conceived to remain physically in the child’s hands.
Paraphrase of the Bologna jury commentary · Biblioteche Bologna · 2010Critical reception
The book kept resurfacing as an object, an experiment and a wordless narrative.
Later readings return to the same core qualities from different angles: physical handling, experimental publishing, sequential narration and the place of the wordless picturebook in Brazil.
BolognaRagazzi jury · 2010
A book to use, manipulate and keep in the hands.
The jury commentary reads Tchibum! through its material intelligence: a playful art-book, close to Pop Art in spirit, whose mobile pages can become almost cinematic.
Revista Educação · 2011
An experimental project deliberately different from the market around it.
Cosac Naify editor Isabel Lopes Coelho grouped Tchibum! among the publisher’s bold, collectively developed projects whose form was tested without knowing how the market would react.
Keimena · University of Thessaly · 2025
A “wordless chronicle” for very young readers.
A contemporary study of wordless books for very young children uses Tchibum! as a strong example of everyday sequential narration, noting its simple swimming sequence, rounded corners, moisture-resistant pages and pull-tab construction.
PUC-SP · doctoral research · 2025
Placed inside the recent history of the Brazilian wordless picturebook.
Research on Brazilian picturebook trends cites Tchibum! between Juarez Machado’s Ida e Volta and Renato Moriconi’s Bárbaro while discussing the growth of wordless books as an editorial tendency in Brazil.
Press & archive
From the pool to Bologna.
Book details
First edition.
- Title
- Tchibum!
- Concept
- Daniel Kondo · Gustavo Borges
- Illustrations / visual narrative
- Daniel Kondo
- Editors
- Augusto Massi · Isabel Lopes Coelho
- Publisher
- Cosac Naify · São Paulo, Brazil
- Publication
- 2009
- Format
- Wordless picturebook · book-object
- Pages
- 24
- Size
- 15 × 10.5 cm
- Printing
- 4 colors
- Binding / special feature
- Paperback · pull-tab cover
- Illustrations
- 15
- ISBN
- 978-85-7503-240-4
- Award
- BolognaRagazzi Award · New Horizons · Special Mention · 2010
Sources & archive
The paper trail.
Tchibum!
A tiny book that turns a first dive into visual rhythm.
Twenty-four pages, no verbal narration, one physical surprise on the cover and a sequence precise enough to make water, confidence and movement legible to a very young reader.