Entitled "Telling Stories with Grandma on your lap", the work refers to popular sayings and expressions and knowledge passed down from generation to generation, and includes the participation of Maria Celestina Fernandes (Angola), Lurdes Breda (Portugal), Mariana Lanelli (Brazil), Natacha Magalhães (Cape Verde), Kátia Casimiro (Guinea-Bissau), Angelina Neves (Mozambique), Olinda Beja (São Tomé and Príncipe) and Maria do Céu Lopes da Silva (East Timor).
After the edition, in 2020, of "100 Papas na Língua", authored by Lurdes Breda, the option this year was to extend the new book to the culture of other Portuguese-speaking countries and their popular expressions.
Speaking to Lusa news agency, Lurdes Breda said the idea was that, "through original texts, with some humor, we could pass to the younger generations things rooted in the culture of each country, under the embrace of the Portuguese language that has all these specificities that children have no idea.
"With these texts we want to show a little bit of the culture and cultural roots of each of the countries. We have a series of uses and customs that are completely antagonistic and different," he added.
The book brings together authors from all the member states of the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries), with the exception of Equatorial Guinea: "In Equatorial Guinea, we have no connection, not even in terms of language, it's a bit strange. We tried, but we couldn't get there", observed the writer of children's books who lives in Montemor-o-Velho, in the district of Coimbra.
The book has a "maternal and feminine" image because all the texts are written by women, although Lurdes Breda denies that it is a "feminist project".
Published by the Portuguese School of Mozambique - Center for Teaching and Portuguese Language and Camões - Cultural Center in Maputo, "Telling stories with grandma in your lap" has the editorial coordination of Teresa Noronha, while the illustration and editorial design are the responsibility of Tânia Clímaco.
To Lusa, the Torres Vedras illustrator revealed that it was the first time she did a work for writers from outside Portugal: "We all speak Portuguese. However, they are very different countries, of different cultures, different colors and completely different realities", noted Tânia Clímaco.
"I had to get into the spirit of each country. The first illustration I did was the one of Portugal, it was 'at home' and went very well. But the others, I confess I did a lot, a lot of research, to be able to illustrate these texts", she said.
Tânia Clímaco gave examples, in Angola, of the samakaka fabric or the Maiombe forest in Cabinda, which "I had no idea whether it was dense or not," passing by the Cuca, a mythical figure of Brazilian folklore, the "terrible crocodile" that reminded the illustrator of her own childhood and of the television series Sítio do Pica-Pau Amarelo, the sacred houses in East Timor or the 'Toca-toca', the expression that, in one of the texts from Guinea-Bissau, defines a "blue and yellow bus, very specific", an existence that "I was completely unaware of".
If at first she was "a little scared" by the need to "transport the readers to the places" in countries she didn't know, especially the African ones, the result, based on the research work, ended up satisfying the authors of the texts.
"The illustrations are based on those specificities, on the details of each country. And they all saw the illustrations and liked them very much, I have the colors and the African environments and my graphic language ends up being a second language in this work," noted Tânia Clímaco.
Now it's time to visit the countries she portrays in the book: "If they invite me, I'm already on a plane", she joked.
In addition to the paper edition of the book, "Telling Stories with Grandma on your lap" will also be available in digital format as an e-book for free download on the website of the Camões Institute in Maputo.
The book also had the support of the School Libraries Network for its distribution to the libraries of the various Portuguese schools abroad and will have an official video to support its dissemination, with testimonials by the authors and readings by children from the countries involved.
