Three Brazilian Little Piggies

Três porquinhos brasileiros, an adaptation of the children's literature classic, written by Luiz Antonio Simas and illustrated by Bozó Bacamarte, is set between the backcountry and the woods. In this version told in verse, following the tradition of cordel literature, Fiddler loves playing viola, Fifer is a master of partying, and Practical, their engineer brother, just wants to work, work, work. Here, it’s not a wolf that threatens the piggies, but a jaguar.

While in the original fable the moral of the story intends to teach children the value of hard work and perseverance, in Simas’s cordel the lesson is the power of joy, affection and faith in the party. Just like in popular tradition, the power of transformation and healing adversity is in the collective aspect of celebrations.

The illustrations of Pernambuco artist Bozó Bacamarte are inspired in typical cordel xylography and by the culture of the Brazilian Northeast.

About the author
Luiz Antonio Simas is from Rio de Janeiro, the son and grandson of men from Pernambuco and women from Alagoas. A History schoolteacher, popular educator, writer, poet and composer, he has published various books and won the Book of the Year Jabuti award in 2016, for his Dicionário da história social do samba in partnership with Nei Lopes. He was a Jabuti finalist in three other occasions. His songs have been recorded by artists such as Maria Rita, Marcelo D2, Criolo and Fabiana Cozza. A researcher of Brazilian popular street culture, he’s particularly fond of folguedos and likes writing about them: carnavais, folias de reis, congadas, cortejos, quermesses, maracatus, cirandas, afoxés, brincadeiras de roda, street dances, pipa championships, and various other ways the Brazilian people found to collectively create life. He has been teaching in the streets for twelve years and, in theseoccasions, he inevitably learns more than teaches.

About the illustrator
Daniel Ferreira da Silva, better known as Bozó Bacamarte, is from Pernambuco, born in Olinda. The artist began his career in the streets of that historical city, as well as Recife, using graffiti as a mode of expression. Bozó searched in his day-to-day for the iconographic repertoire needed to guide his work as an artist. Following this path, he found in popular woodcutting and xylography a form of visual identity that matched his desire for quick communication with the people. The Northeastern people, with its visual expressions, its behavior, its history, its beliefs and superstitions, as well as humor and surrealism, is a recurring theme in the artist’s work, where he paints an enchanted, good-humored and delirious universe. Bozó’s unusual canvases present backwoods, keys to other worlds, populated with unusual beings, tightrope walkers, contortionists, jumpers, and hybrids of animals, toys, people and entities.

Specifications
Title Três porquinhos brasileiros [Three Brazilian Little Piggies]
Author Luiz Antonio Simas
Illustrator Bozó Bacamarte
Publisher Cobogó
Language Portuguese
Page count 48
ISBN 978-65-5691-122-9
Design Bloco Gráfico
Format Softcover
Size 14 x 18 cm
Year 2023