01.06.2021

G5 teacher launches her second children’s book

By Bruna Cronfli and Matheus Alves

Maria Angélica Ayres, a G5 (5 years old) teacher, is launching her second bilingual children’s book: “Coelho Chocolate e a Pequena Flor.” The story is the continuation of her first book, “Coelho Chocolate e a Pedrinha Preciosa,” published in 2019.

The main character finds a beautiful and utterly flowered field in the storyline, except for a single flower, which never blooms. The rabbit tries to fertilize and water it, but nothing seems to work until the day he decides to give it affection.

Lica, as she prefers to be called, always had the dream of writing and publishing a book. Since she was a child, she read a lot and wrote her own stories, both for adults and children, but decided to write for children because she worked with this age group.

When deciding to write a children’s book, she was concerned with illustration, as she believes it to be one of the most important factors in attracting the attention of her readership. With that in mind, she got in touch with Editora Flamingo, which recommended her to some illustrators. Among the suggestions, the author chose Olga Neves, a Portuguese illustrator whose art matched her idea to the storyline. Due to the positive feedback from the first book, the teacher decided to make a sequel to the first story, maintaining partnerships with the publisher and illustrator.

“I was quite in doubt about which language I would write the book in, English or Portuguese,” says Lica and, therefore, decided to write it bilingually. In her report, the teacher states this type of book is very rich for the literacy process in both languages, mainly because it contains repetition. The repetition of dialogues and vocabulary helps in memorization that, combined with writing and illustration, generates emotion in the reader.

Lica intends to use the book in her classes, as she already did with the previous one. Her first book is also used as teaching material in a school in Portugal and is part of the Beacon library collection.