Mafalda: Book One

by Quino, Frank Wynne (translator)

Introducing the South American comic sensation starring a hilarious 6-year-old whose spunky self-confidence will inspire budding activists and curious middle grade readers along with adult fans.

Mafalda may be small—but her hopes for the world are as big as her heart!

Six-year-old Mafalda loves democracy and hates soup. What democratic sector do cats fall into? she asks, then unfurls a toilet paper red carpet and gives her very own presidential address. Mafalda’s precociousness and passion stump all grown-ups around her. Dissident and rebellious, she refuses to abandon the world to her parents’ generation, who seem so lost. Alongside the irascible Mafalda, readers will meet her eclectic group of dreamy Felipe and gossipy Susanita, young-capitalist Manolito and rebellious Miguelito. Quino’s bright irony and intelligence bring the streets and neighborhoods of Buenos Aires to life.

You can clearly see Mafalda is small, but her hopes for the world and her heart are huge and as sincere as can be. Generations of readers have discovered themselves in Mafalda, and learned to question, rebel, and hope. 

Since Quino first drew her in the early 1960s, Mafalda has captured public imagination in Latin America and beyond. Her wit and empathy have made her an enduring favorite.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Humor, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book

120 pages, Hardcover

Published June 10, 2025

About the author

QUINO, Joaquín Salvador Lavado, nace, hijo de inmigrantes españoles, andaluces, en la ciudad de Mendoza (Argentina) el 17 de julio aunque en los registros oficiales conste nacido el 17 de agosto. Desde que nació se lo llamó Quino para distinguirlo de su tío Joaquín Tejón, pintor y dibujante publicitario con quien a los 3 años descubre su vocación.
Comienza la escuela primaria donde descubre que su verdadero nombre es Joaquín y vive las dificultades de su personaje Felipe: «Me angustiaba tanto que en los primeros tres meses tenía malas notas, pero después terminaba el año con notas altas, aunque nunca era el primer alumno y eso me daba bronca».

Reviews

[Doris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Argentine comic from the 1970s; Mafalda is a politically precocious child.
Entertaining.

[Kurt Neumaier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the bit where everything went upside down until Mafalda taped the globe to the wall

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a kid, I loved reading the comics in the newspaper, especially the Saturday edition that had a full colour pull-out section. I loved reading them all including Charlie Brown and Peanuts. So imagine my surprise when on a recent Instagram feed a cartoon appeared in Spanish with a girl with bushy hair that looked like something out of Peanuts. It was oddly funny. Her name was Mafalda.

Then a couple of weeks ago I listened to a podcast interview with a translator Frank Wynne and Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin about the English translation of Mafalda. Schweblin was funny and talked about how everyone in her youth in Argentina identified with the characters: Mafalda, Manolito, Susanita, and Felipe plus her nameless parents (mama and papa, of course). Then I checked my library and put my name on the new book order. When I went to check it out, it was a brand new book! I had one of the first copies.

What a cast. Mafalda hates soup but listens to her transitor radio, inspiring her to ask big questions like overpopulation, politics, social issues, communism versus capitalism, and even asks her parents to explain the Vietnam War (firmly dating her). She is six years old! Manolito, son of a Spanish immigrant, helps his dad in his bodega and he is all about capitalism. Susanita only wants to get married, be rich, and have successful children. Felipe is the dreamer, elusive, loves to procrastinate, and is hooked on The Lone Ranger comics. Unlike Peanuts, her parents are real people just trying to raise Mafalda, despite her challenges. These kids are not Peanuts at all (thank god).

The comic strip was first published in Argentina in 1964 and ended in 1973. It was created for an marketing campaign by Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, also known as Quino. When the campaign was cancelled, he morphed it in a comic strip. It took off. Although Quino said he stopped because he didn’t want to repeat himself, others claim it was because of the political change in Argentine politics. It was widely read in Latin America.

Mafalda is sassy with her big questions. Yes Argentina surfaces a lot, and is presented as having lots of strikes, government problems and turmoil with the plummeting peso. There is a joke about the fish barely recognizing the peso at the bottom of the ocean. Some of these jokes are a little dated but others are very current. I found the funnier strips concerned the fact that the country is “upside” down as seen on the bottom of the globe or about the kids trying to use telepathy. Kids are creative at that young age. Maybe we lose something when we become adults? And yet, these are not comics for kids. God knows I wouldn’t have gotten half of them when I was a kid.

Now I can see what part of the world enjoyed back then. I believe there will more books coming out and I can’t wait. Fun stuff!

[YSBR · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fictional six-year-old Mafalda lives in Argentina during the tumultuous 1960s to early 70s and uses a classic four panel comic structure to comment about her country and the world’s dire state. Originally published in newspapers and magazines during this time period, these collected strips make pointed and sarcastic observations about Argentinian politics, the Vietnam War, inflation, and gender roles, to name just a few targets of Quino’s humor. (The ARC contained 60 pages of cartoons but the finished copy will be 120 pages.) There’s a clear visual and textual similarity to Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts, with children acting as stand-ins for rational and compassionate philosophers, although Mafalda is much more topical. Like Calvin and Hobbes, Mafalda’s parents frequently look unnerved and exhausted by their daughter’s antics, which are as anarchic as Calvin’s but darker. When Mom asks what game the kids are playing as they gather around a table, they announce “Government!” “No getting up to trouble” Mom intones, to which Mafalda replies “Don’t worry…we have lots of policies, but we don’t actually do ANYTHING!” Even those unfamiliar with the historic circumstances of Quino’s world will be amused by this classic collection. One long segment covers Mafalda’s outrage and confusion over Argentina being on the bottom of the globe; Quino then conveys this absurd conundrum by turning all his characters upside down for several pages. Later on, Mafalda tries to develop telepathy and Quino fills his strips with puns and broadly humorous bits.

Aspiring cartoonists will enjoy Quino’s fine pen-and ink drawings, accented with Mafalda’s trademark black and bushy hair. Rarely has so much detail been compressed into such a small space without looking busy. Like Schulz and Watterson, Quino’s a master of the wordless panel, coming after or in between several dialogue blocks. Those interested in world comics or specifically Argentinian history and politics will also find Mafalda worth reading. Link to complete review: https://ysbookreviews.wordpress.com/2...

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a bowl cut and hair ribbon like Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy and a persnickety attitude like Lucy Van Pelt’s, Quino’s Mafalda is a children’s cartoon character granted the ability to worry about things that concern adults: war and peace, political and educational divisions, ecology, women’s rights, the social costs of progress, and so forth. Pretty heady stuff for a six-year-old but no more cerebral than the issues faced and discussed by Charles Schulz’s Peanuts cast or, for that matter, A. A. Milne’s Pooh and friends.

Argentine cartoonist Quino’s Mafalda is joined by Felipe, Susanita, Manolito, and Miguelito—other kids her age with their own eccentricities. Made up of three- and four-panel strips that ran from 1964 to 1973 and were translated into 26 languages, Mafalda appeared in magazines and newspapers from around the world and counted among its fans Umberto Eco, Julio Cortázar, and Gabriel García Márquez. Kids will enjoy Mafalda mixing up her tube of paint with her father’s tube of toothpaste and confusing her father’s looking up a word in a dictionary as a hapless reading of a large book, one paragraph at a time. Adults can find bitter solace in Manolito’s assurances that nuclear war is unlikely: “See, war is like a market. . . And both sides have to be savvy businessmen. . . That’s why the other guys aren’t going to drop bombs and blow up Papa’s grocery store. . . Papa says wolves don’t eat their own.” Although the concept of universalism has been sneered at for the past 40 years, evidence of its existence can be found in the pages of Mafalda.

For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...

[Blane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Created some 60 years ago and revered as an institution in Argentina, Mafalda looks sort of like a Latin American 'Nancy' filtered through South Park's Ike Broflovski, while ruminating on the state of democracy, economic turmoil, wars, political paradigms, the class struggle, soup, The Beatles, and more. (I believe) this is the first comprehensive English translation of Quino's work; more volumes, please.

And Mafalda's Papa's easy chair is a mid-century modern delight!

[Raven Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is a bit dated with the subjects (Vietnam) but also has universal ones, too (kids running parents ragged). Also, images/portrayal of characters are a bit dated and might not be completely politically correct. However, as a look at comics during the time and country, it is an interesting read. Read via an online reader

[Chris]

A nice introduction to an Argentinian cultural touchstone. A playful, biting, satire that is neither solely for adults or children. I would have loved this as a child. I find it reassuring as an adult.

[Katra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong four and a half stars. Mafalda had all the crazy highjinks of Calvin and Hobbes with the political bite of Doonesbury. It's a strange but winning combination, and I absolutely loved it.

p-n, s-n, v-n

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a collection, there's always the ratio of good/poor, but for me the problem was compounded by how dated the "current" events were. In this first of many-to-come English translations, Mafalda is still speaking about the Vietnam War, for example. Just didn't resonate as much as I'd hoped.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so glad Mafalda is available in the US! Looking forward to more(...?)

[Mateen Mahboubi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a version of class-conscious and historically-aware Nancy from Argentina. Some of things here are so 60/70s South America and others are evergreen. Nice slice of history.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read.