Peirópolis at Bologna Children’s Book Fair

Instituto Emília will have a stand at this year’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair, bringing together Brazilian publishers, whose catalogs stand out for their quality and diversity in the publishing scene for Brazilian children and young people. In common, the publishers present have titles that have already been featured in Revista Emília, our publication that is a reference in the critical analysis of books aimed at children and young people.

Emília’s different actions will also be presented at the stand, especially its publishing arm. The initiative aims to give visibility to the work of these publishers and also reinforce the power and quality of Brazilian editorial production, thus rescuing the prestige and strength of our market.

Publishers presents in the stand: Aletria, Barbatana, Caixote, Jujuba, Mazza, Miguilim, Peirópolis, Piu, Selo Emília, Solisluna and WMF. And also the representation of the Municipal Department of Education of São Paulo, which, with the Instituto Emília, will present a project of books for early childhood.

This year’s edition of the BCBF – Bologna Children Book Fair – celebrates its 60th anniversary and will take place between the 6th and 9th of March.

Come visit us! We will be at the Instituto Emília stand (H29 C34).

Get to know the Peirópolis titles that will be at the Instituto Emília stand:

Diário das águas

Gabriela Romeu · Illustrated by Kammal João

104 pages · 16 x 21,5 cm · ISBN 978-65-5931-221-4

In this illustrated poetic diary, the time is that of the listening and the rhythm is that of the waters. The discoveries are made in the depths of rivers and on the bank, in the children’s games, in the memories of the elderly and in the imagination flashes of a traveling poet through the Amazon and other Brazilian regions. When opening these pages, the reader is invited to look at the details and the immensity at the same time, as if his view could go beyond the mist of nature and investigate the origin and beauty of all things.

In the coming and going of the pages, verses, lists, names, recipes, poems and words appear accompanied by the delicate drawings of the artist Kammal. His illustrations investigate the silences between the lines, the gaps in the words, the unsaid in the text.

In an amazing way, this book can translate, at the same time, the dualities of the flood and the ebb, the journey from inside and from the outside, the submerged world and the mirror of reality, the meaning of the words and the sense of the emptiness, the poetry and ethnography.

Orixás: Do Orum ao Ayê

Alex Mir · Illustrated by Caio Majado · Final art and colors by Omar Viñole

88 pages · 17 x 26 cm · ISBN 978-65-5931-185-9

Orum, the sky, and Ayê, the earth. In the beginning, there was nothing. Olorum stretches his body and makes sprout, from the water droplets, in his image and likeness, Oxalá, the first Orixá, to whom he gives life through a breath. This is how the founding myth of Yoruba culture begins, here represented in the powerful language of comics, in the way that has commonly been done with the parables of the Bible or the narratives of the Greek pantheon.

This is the debut album from the Orixás series, which won the HQMIX Trophy Best Independent Publication by Group in 2017 and 2018. This edition brings together, in addition to the main story, the comic book “The day of the silence”, with two more brief fascinating stories previously shared only among those who frequent the sacred places of worship of the Orixás.

The Orixás collection invites us to a deep dive into the culture of our mother Africa. Each volume is born from a source of very careful research and from a respect devoted to the origins of an ancestral people that needs, more and more, to be valued so that we can really understand a little more of our Brazilian soul.

Lá no meu quintal: o brincar de meninas e meninos de Norte a Sul

Gabriela Romeu & Marlene Peret · Illustrated by Kammal João · Photos by Samuel Macedo

128 pages · 19 x 25 cm · ISBN 978-85-7596-646-4

There are yards everywhere: in the square, in the forest, on the streets of small towns, at the back of houses and even inside each one (sometimes a little hidden). In this book we are going to discover the backyards of children from the five Brazilian regions. In its pages the leaf becomes a weathervane, the pique is the pequi tree and the river guarantees fun! Just arrive, board… And play!

Playing is a kind of mother tongue of childhood. And it was through this language that Gabriela Romeu, Marlene Peret and Samuel Macedo got to know Brazil, connecting with children from riversides, and from large urban centers, from the quilombola communities or from the indigenous villages – inhabiting regions that are sometimes close, sometimes far away.  The records in texts, videos and photos of this long journey that began in 2011 are gathered in this book, filled with knowledge, narratives and experiences shared by children in their backyards. 

The encounters with Valdecir and his cart, with Milena under the shade of the mango tree, Welleton, Joel, Laísa and Arawari are made portraits of that exact moment, of that peculiar childhood knowledge, which belongs to each one, but is so common to all – after all, the games change their name, but, in their different versions, they make up the universal language of playing.

Lá no meu quintal… it invites“girls and boys, young or old, from the North or the South, to conjugate a verb so from childhood (and from forever): playing”.

Irmãs da chuva

Gabriela Romeu · Illustrated by Anabella López

80 pages · 24 x 30 cm · ISBN 978-65-5931-031-9

Throughout this fantastic narrative, which plays with the syncretism of human knowledge and the forces of nature, the reader will recognize the fascination and beauty of the deepest Brazilian culture, will hear the echoes of the beliefs and fables of many Brazilian “sertões”, which resist in the voice and in the hearts of singers and storytellers, in guitars and their songs, in faith healers and their arts. A true Brazilian fairy tale, set between the real and the imaginary, with the poetry embroidering the landscape.

The engravings created by the artist Anabella López, an Argentine who adopted the Brazilian northeast as her residence and creative source, recreate the “sertanejo” imaginary through the symbolic language of the hero’s narrative, tarot cards, runes and other divinatory forms.

Mesma nova história

Everson Bertucci, Mafuane Oliveira · Illustrated by João Paulo Vaz

56 pages · 22 x 26 cm · ISBN 978-65-563-110-1

What can be born from the coexistence between an old woman who is losing her memory and a boy who only thinks about electronic games? In a delicate way, the story approaches the finitude of existence, the place of the elderly in family relationships and the birth of affection between a grandmother and her grandson. Bringing references from Afro-Brazilian culture and elements of orality, this illustrated book is the result of collaboration between three authors who express themselves in different languages. The text written by Everson gained voice in Mafuane’s narration, and later a visual narrative composed by João Paulo Vaz. As is common during the path taken by oral histories, the narration was modified, losing a part here, gaining another there, until it became fixed in this written edition.

À sombra da mangueira

Angelo Abu

56 pages · 17 x 24 cm · ISBN 978-65-8602-890-4

This book of African stories was born from a circle of narrators and listeners, formed by the Brazilian artist Angelo Abu and the children and young people who frequent the NGO Hakumana, in Maputo, Mozambique. For several mornings, the group gathered in the shade of a leafy mango tree to share and listen to stories from the African country’s traditional repertoire. The lovely narrations made by the young storytellers have won, in this book, beautiful illustrations by Abu, with strong references to many elements of Mozambican culture. In addition to being read, the stories were recorded and are available via QR-code in this book. In this way, readers can listen to them and appreciate the accent of Maputo Portuguese, alternating with speeches in the native languages ​​of the region, Changana and Ronga. This is also a book about the enchanted place of narration, occupied, without any ceremony, by each child and young person, with their different ways of narrating and fable the world.

Vacation in Antarctica

Every child likes to listen to stories, and to tell stories too. But the stories by sisters Laura, Tamara, and Marininha do not speak of kings, queens, princes or princesses, though the plot is really charming. They speak of super-special holidays aboard sailboat Parati 2, built by their renowned father Amyr Klink. Here they recall five family expeditions to the Antarctic Continent, where seals, penguins, whales, and many other animals spend their summer. Besides logging all the information on their journey, this book brings about important considerations on nature and how our attitude may reflect upon the entire planet.