Brazilian Children’s
Culture Exhibit Visit with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth
Paget
I
took Florence to an exposition entitled Brazil: Beyond the Rain Forest at the
Children’s Museum in Madison (Wisconsin) in the late 90s.
The
Brazilian lady, who was running the show, and I spoke about English, French,
and Brazilian-Portuguese books for children, Brazil, and Brazilian-Portuguese
comic books.
Our
wonderful volunteer reader began the storytelling with a great introduction to
the most well-known comic characters in Brazil as far as children are
concerned.
The
volunteer said the characters could be called Monica’s Pantheon. Monica is a tough little girl, who carries a
blue bunny. Whenever her little friend
Cebollinga (onion head) picks on her, she lets him have it with her blue bunny.
Another
friend is Magali, who eats melons all the time.
Cascuo is a little boy, who does not like to bathe. All of his friends want to leave the room
when he comes into the room.
Franga
is always chasing her dog Bidow, who does not like to bathe very much
either. The last character we meet is
Angio, who can fly like an angel.
The
volunteer said that there is a Monica Land in Brazil. Another key fact about Brazil: the
all-important key word for comic books is jibi.
(I like comic books, but if you keep reading them your vocabulary level
does not increase. Brazil has a low
literacy rate, and their newspapers are not written in high-level Portuguese
either.)
The
Brazil exhibit was set up in cooperation with a museum in Porto Alegre
(Brazil). One interesting thing that the
exhibit explained was the Festa de Bonfim.
During
this festival, people tie knots on their wrists with the help of a friend. Three knots equals three wishes. When a knot falls off, a wish will be
granted.
Another
exhibit called “favelas” (Brazilian slums) showed how Brazilian children often
helped their parents build a home with found materials. They also used found materials to make toys.
The
most inventive exhibits were the shoebox interiors that children created to
make cityscapes of where they lived. The
children exchanged these boxes between Madison and Porto Alegre (Brazil).
To
this day, I would still like to say, “Obrigado” – thank you – to the Children’s
Museum of Madison for this sensitive introduction to Brazilian children’s
culture.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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