Brynn Barineau

Author: Brynn

  • King João VI of Portugal: Feared Crustaceans, Tricked Napoleon, & Lost Brazil

    King João VI of Portugal: Feared Crustaceans, Tricked Napoleon, & Lost Brazil

    One reason I love writing historical fiction is the chance to discover real people I’d swear were fabricated in someone’s imagination. King João VI of Portugal is one of these people. The man was born to be the comedic relief in someone else’s story. Sure, he was also born into royalty, but he seemed so much more suited for getting laughs than governing.

    I discovered Dom João VI while researching for a book set in 1809 Rio de Janeiro. (Aside: King John is the English version of his name and title, which I won’t be using because that makes me think of English kings and Robin Hood but I’m writing about Portugal and there really are just too many people named John or some variation in human history). At the time of my story, João was Prince Regent and had been ruling in place of his mom, Queen Maria I of Portugal, since 1792 when she was declared insane. (Queen Maria is a whole other post.)

    What to say about Dom João? He loved to eat. He always carried grilled chicken in his coat pocket for emergency snacking. This becomes even more disgusting after learning he also hated bathing and wouldn’t change his clothes for months. He was terrified of thunder and crustaceans, very inconvenient phobias when living in tropical Rio de Janeiro. João would literally hide in his bedroom during thunderstorms. He referred to himself in third person and was plagued by vertigo and hemorrhoids.

    Not surprisingly, João was also the last absolute monarch of Portugal. What is surprising are his nine kids, which is eight more than I’d have guessed for a man universally considered a “peaceful dullard” with a “flaccid visage”.

    But the truly shocking and grand achievement of Dom João was surviving. When monarchs all over Europe were getting deposed at best and beheaded at worst, Dom João, the peaceful dullard, kept his crown, and he did it by being the only European monarch in history to move the capitol of his kingdom to a different continent. This man, who hated change so much his servants had to repair holes in his pants while he slept, moved the capital of Portugal from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro.

    João had been communicating with Napoleon in hopes of finding some solution that didn’t get him exiled or killed. Napoleon, the British, and pretty much everyone was under the impression Portugal would surrender to France. In 1808, the Prince Regent played Napoleon just long enough to order his government to pack up, board a ship, and get the hell out of Portugal before Napoleon’s army showed up. As someone who always preferred to delay a decision rather than make one, João gave the court three days to evacuate 10,000 people across the Atlantic.

    That’s how Dom João VI found himself living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil trying to establish court in a colony that had almost no roads between cities, no universities, no printing presses, and no trade with anyone but Portugal. Of course, the total lack of development in Brazil was intentional to keep the colony submissive and easily controlled. No Portuguese monarch ever anticipated having to live in this place where doctor, dentist, and barber was a single, mostly self-taught profession.

    But it all changed under Dom João. He allowed roads, universities, and newspapers to flourish in Brazil. In exchange for escorting the court across the Atlantic, Brazilians ports were opened to the British and trade expanded. Academics, artists, and merchants flooded Brazil.

    And Brazil declared independence sixteen years after João arrived in Rio. (Printing presses always lead to independence.)

    As king finally back in Portugal, João conceded Brazilian independence in 1822 after a bloodless revolution led by the son he left behind in Rio to run the colony. His son’s betrayal probably didn’t bother him too much. At that point his wife had tried to overthrow him a few times so he was surely used to betrayal by immediate family.  When he died in 1826, many suspected arsenic poisoning possibly ordered by his wife. (She really hated him.)

    He may have lost Brazil for Portugal, but because of the reforms and development João initiated during his time in Brazil which led directly to independence, he’s remembered quite fondly here in spite of his eccentricities.

    For my part, I can picture him clearly. His Majesty Dom João VI holding court, unbathed, and referring to himself in third while nibbling buttery chicken pulled out of a stained coat pocket that hasn’t been changed in a month. The perfect comedic relief.

    If you’re interested in reading more about João and Brazilian history, I highly recommend 1808: The Flight of the Emperor by Laurentino Gomes.

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  • O Gênio do Crime: A Brazilian Middle Grade Classic

    O Gênio do Crime: A Brazilian Middle Grade Classic

    I recently asked my husband what his favorite books were as a kid and without hesitation he said “O Gênio do Crime.” He couldn’t remember the author’s name, but he remembered in detail an ingenious system the kid detectives invented to tail a very tricky criminal. My husband remembered this book instantly after forty years, and it wasn’t about ancient Rome.

    I had to read it.

    Writing a story that stays with a child for the rest of their lives, that’s the dream for children’s authors. João Carlos Marinho solidified his place among Brazil’s greatest children’s writers with the 1969 publication of O Gênio do Crime. It became an instant bestseller and is currently #49 on Amazon Brazil’s fiction list.

    Before I go on, I regret to say that I can’t find an English or Spanish translation. A fluent Spanish speaker would have no problem reading the Portuguese text, but as far I can discover, there’s no way for a non-Portuguese speaker to read the 49th most popular book in Brazil. Which is a shame.

    The kids of São Paulo are on the verge of an uprising when the company manufacturing soccer trading cards stops awarding prizes for collecting because of counterfeit cards being mass produced in the city. (It’s possibly the most Brazilian crime ever.) The police have yet to find this “gênio do crime” (genius of crime), but Edmundo, Pituca, and Bolachão are determined to succeed where the police have failed and ensure the kids of Sao Paulo can continue collecting cards and prizes.

    It’s a thrilling adventure for three friends that takes them on chases and stake outs and even undercover as they try to discover the location of the illegal factory. The method the kids invent to follow one of street sellers, which my husband remember forty years later, is brilliant and how fun is it to read about kids outsmarting the grown-up criminals.

    But I don’t know if I want my daughter to read it for one simple reason, epic fat shaming.

    I know ever book is a product of the time and place it was written. I know that a group of ten-year old boys communicate and express friendship differently than a group of ten year old girls. I still cringed repeatedly throughout the book.

    Bolachão is overweight, and his friends never let him forget it. The tease him relentlessly even after Bolachão asks them to stop. He’s repeatedly referred to by the omniscient narrator as “o gordo”, which I’d translate as fatty. The character is defined primarily by his size and then by his intelligence, because Bolachão is the genius of the group and the one who solves the mystery. But the reader doesn’t know how smart he’s until about six chapters into the book. Whereas his weight is made clear from the first sentence.

    I talked to my husband about it. As I did not grow up a boy in Brazil, I was curious how close the the friend’s banter was to reality. Very close is what he told. Pretty mild actually. There’s a saying in Rio, “The only people never booed in Maracanã (the soccer stadium) are the Pope and Frank Sintra.” Meaning those “super friendly” Brazilians the world hears about can be harsh. According to my husband, boys and men tease mercilessly. It doesn’t matter who you are, as nobody is perfect, your friends will find that not perfect thing about you and never let you forget it, but you’re expected to give it back to them. If you don’t tease or get teased, then you aren’t among personal friends.

    Ok. I get that. However, Bolachão is harassed to a much greater extent the either of the other boys. Even the adults refer to him as “Fatty”. It’s pretty clear that for the characters being overweight is a far more serious offense the any other flaw. And haven’t we learned more about the psychology of kids and come to understand behavior that was commonplace even twenty years ago is in fact really damaging and standards for behavior should be changed?

    Does that mean we never read books written in different eras or cultures because they might offend us? Do I deny a father-daughter bonding moment by forbidding my husband to share one of his favorite childhood books with her? When everyone else her age has read it because it’s the 49th most popular in Brazil, do I tell her no?

    So the simple review I wanted to write about a famous Brazilian kid’s book has turned into a complex analysis of how to judge a book written in a different time and culture when it is very problematic by my personal standards.

    The one thing I’m sure about is that I would NOT give this book to a child struggling with body image. Nope. Not under any circumstances. The fat shaming in this book is intense, and while it’s a fun story, I wouldn’t consider it required reading.

    As for our home, and this could change because I’m still in the midst of an active internal debate, I’ll apply the same policy for reading Huck Finn. When she’s old enough, I’ll read it with her and we’ll talk about it. I think it’s important for kids to know how people acted in the past and compare it to today, but this requires an adult to lead the discussion.

    What do you think? Have you read O Gênio do Crime? How do you feel about popular older books that are problematic by today’s standards? Like I said, it’s something I’m thinking about and would love to hear other opinions.

  • A Random Street in Rabat

    A Random Street in Rabat

    This is a flashback to my first published essay! It appeared in 2007 in the now defunct digital magazine Glimpse, a National Geographic Imprint. It’s about the first day of my study abroad program in Rabat, Morocco in Sepetember, 2003. I’m feeling very old now.

    A Random Street in Rabat

    It did not take me long after announcing my study abroad plans to realize that “abroad” for most of the people I knew meant Western Europe or Australia. Any other country was not so much abroad as another planet. The first time I mentioned Morocco to family or friends there was usually a momentary pause as people first, tried to place Morocco on a map, and second tried to figure out why I wanted to spend a significant amount of time there. Australia they could understand. It has beaches and people with funny accents. Italy has pasta and Prada. The only thing Morocco has is a city named after a Humphrey Bogart film.

    While many people didn’t know what countries Morocco borders they did know it is Islamic and predominantly Arab. This was cause for concern among friends and family. Being what one of my professors calls a “good liberal” I believed I was above the negative generalizations many of my friends and family made. When my less open-minded family and friends living sheltered lives in Georgia, asked why I would want to study in a country where I was likely to get assaulted simply for being American, I’d give an exasperated sigh and patiently (maybe ever so condescendingly) explain that “all Arabs are not terrorists and they do not spend their afternoons looking for Americans to beat with sticks.” I scolded my friends for being so ethnocentric as to believe Arabs were inherently more violent than Americans. I prided myself on avoiding the negative stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims many of my friends and family engaged in and as an open-minded, good, liberal, university student I arrived in Casablanca with my program group on September 2, 2003.

    On September 3, I found myself all alone, completely lost, standing on a street corner in Rabat. That was the day of the Drop Off–the morning our program directors piled all 22 students on a bus, drove us around Rabat until we had no directional bearings whatsoever, and dropped us off one by one on random street corners throughout the city. Our first full day in Morocco and each of us was left stranded on a different street corner with no maps, no cell phones, and no idea how to even pronounce the street our hotel was on. The only thing we had was an assignment. Get back to the hotel by 1 o’clock. Welcome to Morocco and good luck.

    As the bus pulled away it kicked up a huge cloud of dust, which settled adding to the already thick layer on the cars parked along the curb. Across the street was a clay wall, stretching as far as I could see in both directions. “Where am I?!” Panic is an interesting sensation and watching the bus pull away with the teachers and students I was convinced I would never see again, I got to experience heart-pounding, adrenaline-pumping, rational-thought-inhibiting, panic.

    As I frantically looked around I noticed one opening in the wall flanked by two heavily armed Moroccan soldiers. I had heard stories about corrupt police officers in developing countries, about the actions of local military around the world who were supposed to be protecting refugees in various places, and decided the best direction to start walking would be away from the men with guns, uniform or no uniform. It would be much later before I realized this was my first decision in Morocco based entirely on a stereotype.

    I walked down a few residential streets, which were of course deserted. Where were all those people I had seen out on the streets the day before? Where were the market streets I glimpsed through the bus windows bustling with people and literally humming with energy? I was desperate to find a person, and it appeared I had been dropped off on the only street in Rabat where no one was selling anything. I wanted to find people, and I wanted to find them before the band of angry Islamic fundamentalists rounded the corner and stoned me.

    Yes, that was one of the many thoughts running through my head as I tried to keep myself together. Despite all my boasting about being above the negative stereotyping of Arabs many friends and family engaged in, as I stood on the sidewalk of an unknown street somewhere in Rabat, I was genuinely afraid I was going to be harassed, beaten, or worse by those “fanatical Arabs.” So much for being a good liberal who doesn’t stereotype. I was alone, in a completely foreign country, with no knowledge of the language, or the culture, or where in God’s name my hotel was–and in that panic I embraced the most negative, racist stereotypes that had ever been presented in Western media. I wanted to go back to the time when being liberal meant eating vegan chocolate cake and discussing Said’s definition of orientalism on the quad of my $34,000 a year university in Northwest Washington, DC. While I walked, my mind kept repeating, “What am I doing here? I’m a white girl from Snellville, Georgia USA, where all the teenagers wear ‘what would Jesus do?’ bracelets. Why didn’t I study abroad in London with all of my friends?”

    After what seemed like forever, but of course in these situations is really only a minute or two, I found a street with stores, cafes and, most importantly, a group of women standing on a corner not far in front of me. I walked up to them and steeled myself for all the anti-American sentiment I was certain would come spewing forth. Then a funny thing happened. When I said the name of the main road near our hotel all the women started smiling and pointing. One woman in what looked like a long brown nightshirt (I later learned it is called a djellabah) and a cream hijab, took my elbow and guided me down the street so I could see where she was pointing. The others followed all smiling and telling me the way.

    Visiting the beaches of Rabat with my homestay family! My little brother and sister for four months.

    Unfortunately they were telling me in Arabic of which I knew not one word. I did, however, get the general direction, and I started walking that way. As I walked, it occurred to me the women had been nice. They had been helpful. Nobody had given me a mean look or angry gesture. They had read my body language, figured out I was lost, and pointed me in the right direction. I began thinking, “Maybe other people I meet would be nice too? Maybe I’ll get back to the hotel alive?” Things were looking up.

    I approached a young couple walking down the street and they stopped and gave me very detailed directions in French smiling the entire time. It took about three sentences from the couple for me to realize that I had seriously overestimated my French skills on my program application, but I understood enough to get turned down the right street. I was getting closer and I had talked to two groups of people who had been more than happy to help me. The panic was slowly being replaced by a sense of confidence and a sneaking suspicion nobody was going to kill me along the way.

    Finally, while I was standing on a corner with my facial expressions screaming, “I am totally lost,” a young man came up and asked politely in French if he could help. I explained that I was looking for my hotel and that I didn’t speak French all that well. He smiled and said slowly that he knew where the hotel was, it wasn’t far and he would walk me to it. And that is exactly what he did. I don’t where he had been going or what his afternoon plans had been, but this man took twenty minutes out of his day to walk some random and confused foreigner to the door of her hotel. I was grateful and shocked by how generous this man had been with his time.

    As pleasantly surprising as this man’s generosity had been it was not the biggest surprise of the day. I was struck to the core when I walked into the hotel’s lobby and saw it was filled with students and all the Moroccans who had taken the time to help each of us find our way back. As we breathlessly shared our stories at increasing levels of volume, it became evident that every student made it back to the hotel through the generosity of complete strangers who were willing to take time out of their day to help another person. We had not experienced any kind of anti-American sentiment; in fact most of us had gotten incredibly positive reactions toward Americans. I hadn’t come across a flag or Bush effigy burning in the street. I had been in Morocco one full day and I had already had an exciting and liberating adventure, which introduced to many touchingly generous people and brought me face to face with my own hidden stereotypes.

    When the rush of having successfully followed someone who knew exactly where he was going began to ebb I was forced to face the humbling fact of how quickly, and without any good reason, I had thought the worst of all the people around me. It turned out, after all my pre-departure pontificating I had at some point internalized the same negative stereotypes of Arab Muslims I was consciously trying to avoid. I knew the first step to ridding myself of these stereotypes was admitting I had them in the first place.

    The program staff was amazing!!!

    Recognizing and then confronting stereotypes is one of the most difficult parts of traveling to another country and it seems unfair that a person should be forced to do this while jet-lagged, sleep-deprived, and trying not to get lost every time she ventures out of her hotel, this last one being especially difficult when the street signs are written in a different alphabet. Unfortunately, travelers have no choice because it usually only takes landing at the airport to realize just how far off your preconceptions were. Failing to identify your own stereotypes and the information that led to their creation will be the cause of hair-pulling frustration and anger at the people for not being exactly the way you had imagined them in your head. While tenaciously clinging to stereotypes, particularly if they are negative, will also blind a person to the wonderful and fascinating realities and practices of any culture. Recognizing stereotypes for what they are, imagined realities based on limited information, and preparing yourself to leave them behind as you learn and observe the reality from within the culture, are essential in order to make the transition into a new culture.

    This picture has nothing to do with the article except that it was taken during my semester in Morocco. I just wanted to share it.

     

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  • My Most Brutal Agent Critique & What It Taught Me About Diverse Stories

    My Most Brutal Agent Critique & What It Taught Me About Diverse Stories

    It happened. I finally got the brutal agent response I will talk about twenty years from now at book signings. I’m a real writer now. Yay!

    I wasn’t expecting an total take down of my novel considering I wasn’t querying. I took an online workshop on historical fiction that included a critique by the agent instructor of a log line, synopsis, and first 2 pages. I’d recently finished the first draft and was eager to get feedback on what needed to be improve. Here’s what I got back.

    “Unusual can be good, but in this case, Portugal may feel too foreign to American readers…I don’t know how interested American readers are going to be in this particular era and place. There is no precedent for it. That doesn’t mean you can’t start a new trend, but first it would have to be so spectacular that readers wouldn’t be able to put it down. Unfortunately, that is not the case here.”

    Once I recovered from not having my first pages recognized for their genius and obvious money-making potential, I reread the email more critically.

    My first thought was “Portugal, a Christian country in Europe full of white people, may feel too foreign for Americans?” I’m still trying to figure out what about US demographics gives the agent this impression. If Portugal is too foreign what countries will Americans read about? Great Britain, obviously. France, yes. Germany? What about Russia? They’re white, but their culture is pretty dissimilar to the US.

    I’m assuming the agent was thinking of white Americans. But maybe that’s unfair. The agent could have been thinking about Korean Americans. Portugal is different from Korea in so many ways from language to internet speed. Korean Americans probably have no interest in reading a story set there. I know I personally only read books set in places my DNA came from. Thank God Hogwarts is in England!

    Going off that thought, maybe the large percentage of Americans who have DNA from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, North or South America would be interested in reading a story set in one of those places. This would actually be a great thing for my story.

    Which leads to my second thought after rereading the email. See if you can spot the source of my confusion.

    Log Line: 

    Three young women form an improbable friendship in order to rescue the boy, find a murderer, and thwart a coup against the Portuguese monarchy. Madness & Diamonds is a girl-power Three Musketeers set in colonial Rio de Janeiro.

    My book is not set in Portugal.

    Here’s the first line of my synopsis.

    Victoria, a servant of The Mad Queen Maria of Portugal, evacuates Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro with the royal family and 10,000 members of the court in advance of Napoleon’s invasion.

    To clarify, Brazil is the big green one. Portugal is the orange dot.

    The synopsis goes on to mention Rio another nine times. The most generous interpretation of events is that the agent was pressed for time or exhausted or probably both, skimmed my material in a rush and latched on to the first nationality mentioned, Portuguese. Or the agent typed Portugal but was thinking Brazil? I also considered the agent may not know where Rio de Janeiro is. (At Christmas I had to tell a homeschooling mom what continent Brazil is on, so thinking Rio is in Portugal is totally possible.)

    Whatever the reason for the confusion, it’s just as well for me because if Portugal is too foreign, I can’t imagine what feedback I’d have gotten on a story set in Brazil.

    In fairness, the agent cited one problem with my pages and synopsis: clarity. I absolutely agree based on her feedback that certain aspects of the story need to be made more obvious. I also know that complaining about a bad critique can make me seem petty to unprofessional. All writers get bad critiques. Get over it. And I would have except for one fact.

    This agent is a Gatekeeper with a capitol G, and it was abundantly clear from the critique, this agent would never take a risk on a manuscript that was “too foreign.”

    Foreign too whom? White, Christian Americans.

    I joked about who the agent was envisioning when saying Portugal is too foreign for Americans, but it’s obvious what specific demographic she defines as American. What infuriates me is that the “Americans” this agent is considering will not even represent the vast majority of the population in a few years.

    The Census Bureas predicts that by 2020, the majority of kids in the United States will be members of a minority race or ethnic group. Every single person working in children’s publishing in any capacity should know this fact because while the demographics of American children have changed, children’s publishing is still overwhelmingly white. Last year only 28% of children’s books were by and/or about people of color. That percentage is actually big jump from only two years earlier. However there’s still going to have to be a massive increase in stories about POC in the next few years, if children’s fiction in the U.S. is going to reflect the diverse reality of the country’s kids.

    But how is children’s publishing going to change if the Gatekeepers think Portugal is too foreign for Americans?

    Literature is also a proven way to develop empathy for people different from ourselves. Only 11% of children’s books published in the last 23 years had multicultural content. In today’s globalized world, it is essential children grow up aware of the variety of people that exist in the world. Not to mention the foreign-born population in the U.S. is predicted to reach a record high in 2025, roughly 15% of all people living in the U.S. will have been born in another country. (That statistic doesn’t even include people like my daughter, who is an American born abroad.) Empathy and a global perspective are critical tools for success in today’s world.

    I’m going to end with a thank you to the agent who sent this critique. I had read the data and accounts from authors of color and those trying to publish books with diverse characters and settings. I was aware of the challenges these writers and books face but I wasn’t clear on the exact form they take. Now I know, and I’m more determined than ever to finish revising my story set in Brazil. I’m going to get it published. Then I’m going to sell it to Americans. Finally, I’ll send a copy along with the book’s sales numbers to that agent.

    Although even then, I won’t have any idea how Americans feel about Portugal.

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  • 5 Amazing Brazilian Children’s Authors

    5 Amazing Brazilian Children’s Authors

    When I first began shopping for children’s books in Brazil, I had a hard time finding books by Brazilians. It was crazy. I was in Saraiva, one of the major chain bookstores in Brazil, and I noticed the books I’d picked were all translations from American authors. So I began hunting for books by Brazilians. I picked up one book after another. Published in France. Published in the UK. Published in Italy. I picked up one with a Macaw on the front. Macaws are from the Amazon. It had to be Brazilian. Nope. Published in Columbia.

    There are of course many amazing Brazilian authors writing for children, but despite amazing native authors and children’s lit community, I had to research and order books by Brazilians. My local chain bookstore in Vitoria was no help, which is just wrong.

    So I’d like to introduce five of my favorite Brazilian children’s book authors. I’ve included links for English translations when available. Based on what Spanish speaking friends have told me, a native Spanish speaker should have no trouble reading the Portuguese, but I’d love to get more Brazilian kid lit translated into English. I’ll add it to the list of life goals.

    ANA MARIA MACHADO

    Machado was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1941 and has written over 100 books for children. In 2000, Machado won the international Hans Cristian Andersen Award, which designated her one of the greatest children’s authors in the world. She began writing in 1969 and wrote specifically for children because during the military dictatorship in Brazil, children’s literature along with poetry and song, “were amongst the few literary forms with which, through the poetic and symbolic use of language, you could make the ideas of a joie de vivre, individual freedom and respect for human rights known.” Some of her most famous books include A Menina Bonita do Laço de Fita, about a white bunny who desperately wants to become a beautiful black like the little girl next door and the advice she gives him, and Bisa Bia, Bisa Bel, about a girl’s internal dialogue with her great-grandfather and her own great-granddaughter. A Menina Bonita do Laço de Fita is available in English on Amazon.

     

     

    CECILIA MEIRELES

    Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1901, Meirelles published her first work at the age of 18, and she was every bit the genius you’d assume based on that fact. She’s known in Brazil primarily as a poet, but she was also a professor, journalist, painter, playwright, and fiction author. There aren’t many types of writing she didn’t publish in. She could do it all. Meirelles was one of the first women in Brazil to be recognized as a great literary voice. Some of her most famous works for children are   “O Cavalinho Branco”, “Sonhos de Menina”, and “O Menino Azul”. The musicality of her lines is so strong, that “O Menino Azul” still sounded lovely when I read it aloud. (And as all adult learners of a second language know, nothing is harder to read aloud in a foreign language than poetry.) I haven’t been able to find any of her children’s works translated into English, but you can find many of her most famous poems translated in this anthology of Brazilian poets.

     

     

     

    EVA FURNARI

    Furnari is an Italian-Brazilian author-illustrator. I’ve been able to forgive her for hoarding so much talent (author-illustrators seem so unfairly awesome) because her characters are so delightfully quirky. Born in Rome in 1948, she moved to São Paulo at the age of two and has lived there ever since. She came to children’s books in the early 1980’s through art and initially worked exclusively an illustrator before creating her own characters and stories. One of her most famous characters is A Bruxinha Zuzu or Zuzu the Little Witch, who never quite seems to master the power of her magic wand.  Many of Funari’s books are textless, including our favorite A Bruxinha Zuzu e o Gato Miú, and can be enjoyed regardless of what languages you read. One of her most famous and award winning stories, Felpo Filva,  is available in English as Fuzz McFlops in both the US and UK.

     

     

    SONIA JUNQUEIRA

    Born in the state of Minas Gerais in 1945, Junqueira published her first book at the age of 37 and has gone on to write more than 100 children’s books. She worked as a professor and editor before becoming an author. My daughter and I discovered Junqueira through a book swap at school. My daughter, always the animal lover, picked up a book with a cute cat on the front porch. I was the first story in verse that was more poetry than story and I honestly wasn’t sure how well she’d like it. A Poesia na Varanda was a hit and inspired me to buy Where the Sidewalk Ends during our Christmas trip to the US. I haven’t found any English translations but many of her world are available outside Brazil in Portuguese through Kindle.

     

     

    VERONICA STIGGER

    Stigger is not really known as a children’s author. She’s a journalist, art critic, and writer primarily for adults known for challenging rules of genre and format in her work. Born in the state of Porto Alegre in 1973, Stigger began working as an essayist for radio and television. She then pursued a PhD in Art theory and Criticism and pursued research and various post-doctoral work before publishing her first collection of stories for adults in 2004. So not a career kid lit writer. However, one of her most recent books, Onde a Onça Bebe Água, Where the Jaguar Drinks Water, is one of the best books I’ve read for teaching empathy and seeing the world through a another’s eyes. In the story, Jaci is forced to consider the world from the perspective of the Jaguar he’s ends up dining with. Unfortunately, there isn’t an English translation of it or any of her books that I can find but several of her adults works do have Spanish versions available on Amazon.

  • Dengue, Zika, Chikungunya, & Yellow Fever

    Dengue, Zika, Chikungunya, & Yellow Fever

    This is public enemy #1!
    Aedes aegypti. Know it and squish it!

    There are over 3,000 species of mosquitoes. A fact I think proves there’s no benevolent deity.

    This post is a run down of the basic info on the common mosquito born diseases in Brazil: dengue, zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. It’s essential information if you’re visiting.

    Because the mosquitoes are winning.

    Last year in the wake of zika and the microcephaly epidemic in Brazil, the federal government mobilized troops to patrol for standing water basically declaring war against mosquitoes. The yellow fever outbreak this year is evidence of how well that went in the long term.

    So here’s everything you didn’t want to need to know about mosquito born illnesses in Brazil.

    DENGUE: Let’s start with dengue because it kills the most people every year. I know zika is the Kim Kardashian of the bunch, hogging all the media attention, but dengue is most likely to put you in the hospital. There were roughly 1.5 million registered cases of dengue in Brazil last year and of those 629 died. The severity depends on which of the four strains of the virus you get. The worst causes hemorrhaging, but most people just get incapacitating joint pain and high fever.

    Dengue is usually transmitted through the bite of an infected mosquito, but it can be passed from mother to fetus. The disease is asymptomatic in 40-80% of cases. The incubation ranges from 3 to 14 days.

    Symptoms

    • Sudden high fever
    • Severe headache
    • Severe joint pain
    • Moderate joint pain
    • Severe pain behind the eyes (basically your body will hurt a lot)
    • A skin rash that appears post fever
    • Fatigue
    • Nausea
    • Itching

    The Severe Case Symptoms (everything above plus…)

    • Bleeding from the nose and gums
    • Abdominal pain
    • Vomiting
    • Hypotension
    • Dizziness
    • Breathing difficulty

    In rare cases, sometimes after a second infection, a person can develop dengue hemorrhagic fever which leads to shock and death in 24 hours. Yeah, dengue totally sucks.

    There’s no vaccine. There’s no drug treatment. The only thing to do with dengue is treat the symptoms and be sure not use any aspirin because it increases the risk of hemorrhaging.

    Yeah, they’re all cute and cuddly until one drops dead of yellow fever.

    ZIKA: If you’ve been to Brazil in the last year and sneezed, you might have had zika. Or maybe you didn’t sneeze. You still might have had zika. Most cases are asymptomatic, about 80%.

    Of the most common mosquito borne diseases, zika results in the fewest hospital cases. In 2016 there were 214,193 cases of Zika in Brazil and 3 deaths. The global panic over zika is because of it’s link to microcephaly, a condition that babies develop in utero which prevents the brain and skull from developing normally.

    And let’s be clear. There IS scientific consensus that the zika virus is one of the causes of microcephaly. I believe in the CDC, WHO, and peer reviewed scientific journals. Conspiracy theorists can save themselves time and not bother commenting about genetically altered mosquitos. I will just delete them.

    The fact the disease is asymptomatic in the majority of cases makes it particularly scary for women who are or may become pregnant. It’s possible to have zika and never know until the baby develops complications. Even if you develop symptoms, they’re usually mild.

    Symptoms

    • low grade fever
    • headache
    • skin rash starting on the face and spreading over the body
    • red eyes
    • itching
    • fatigue
    • sore joints

    Less Common Symptoms

    • Muscle pain
    • Swelling
    • Sore throat
    • Vomiting or diarrhea
    • Swelling

    So now pregnant women all over Brazil can worry that their swollen legs and exhaustion is actually zika. Because there wasn’t enough for expectant parents to worry about. Fucking mosquitos.

    There’s no vaccine.

    CHIKUNGUNYA: Unlike zika and dengue, if you get chikungunya, you’ll know. 70% of cases develop symptoms. At least you don’t have to wonder whether or not you need a doctor.

    Last year there were 265,554 cases of chikungunya resulting in 159 deaths, so worse than zika but not as prevalent as dengue.

    Symptoms

    • Sudden onset of high fever
    • Severe joint pain mostly in feet, ankles, hands, wrists

    About the joint pain, almost every case has it and in rare cases it becomes chronic.

    Less Common Symptoms

    • Intense back pain
    • Headache
    • Muscle pain
    • Vomiting
    • Conjunctivitis
    • Fatigue
    • Photophobia
    • Sore throat

    Basically everything hurts like hell.

    Like the others, there’s no vaccine for chikungunya and no treatment beyond treating the symptoms.

    CDC’s risk area for yellow fever in South America

    YELLOW FEVER: The CDC’s website has a map of areas where yellow fever vaccines are recommended. The risk area for Brazil extends just up to the border of our state. So far this year 31 people have died from yellow fever in Esparto Santo. Dear CDC, you need to update your map.

    Yellow fever is typically passed via an infected monkey to mosquito to human, so areas without dense forests were considered safe. The incubation period is 3 to 6 days but most cases are asymptomatic.

    Symptoms

    • Sudden high fever
    • Severe headache
    • Back pain
    • Muscle pain
    • Nausea & vomiting
    • Fatigue
    • Weakness

    After a brief remission, 15% of cases will develop a severe form of the disease.

    Symptoms of Severe Form

    • High fever
    • Jaundice (hence the name)
    • Bleeding
    • Shock
    • Organ Failure

    Of cases that turn severe 20-50% die.

    We got our yellow fever vaccines!

    But good news! There’s a vaccine! Two doses taken ten years apart provide lifetime immunity. Yay science! If you’re thinking about visiting Brazil this year, double check to see if your hotel is located within one of the new expanded risk area. Be sure to use a Brazilian site. Remember, the CDC’s map is out of date.

    Vaccines are being developed for the other three. Several companies will have zika vaccines ready for clinical trials by the end of the year. Late stage clinical trials of dengue vaccines are already underway, and researchers have reported success with initial clinical trials for chikungunya vaccines. Unfortunately, we’re still years away from these vaccines being available to the public.

    In the meantime, don’t cancel your vacation. Just be prepared. Get a yellow fever vaccine. Pack repellent. Sleep with your windows closed and fan on. And for god’s sake, if you see a mosquito, kill it!

  • Getting Our Yellow Fever Vaccines

    Getting Our Yellow Fever Vaccines

    This is public enemy #1!
    Aedes aegypti. It carries dengue, zika, & chikungunya.

    Mosquito born viruses did not cross my mind when considering what my daily life would be like in Brazil, but it turns out that repellent is right up there with sunscreen as a daily necessity.

    I certainly never lost sleep over a mosquito in the U.S., but here in Brazil, more than once we’ve turned the lights on in the middle of the night at the whine of a mosquito. Some people might think mosquito hunting at 2am is overreacting, but my husband has had dengue. The steely-eyed commitment with which he stalks every mosquito in our home makes me think the experience has stayed with him.

    Public health officials in Brazil take mosquitoes seriously too. They’ve been battling dengue for decades. Chikungunya and Zika became common place in the last few years, and this year, Espirito Santo and its neighbor, Minas Gerais, are combating the spread of yellow fever. My family and I got our yellow fever vaccines last week, and it was an impressive operation.

    If you know the monkey might have yellow fever, is it still as cute?

    Vaccine distribution is one public service Brazil has mastered. At the end of February, the city government confirmed a monkey found dead in Vitoria in January had died from yellow fever. This one dead monkey kicked public health services into Defcon 5. The city closed 11 parks in the metro area. The federal government sent 1 million more doses of yellow fever vaccine to Espirito Santo. Public Health posts’ hours and days of operation were expanded. Churches have been converted to vaccination centers. Firefighters and nurses from public hospitals have been enlisted to distribute and administer the vaccines. This past Saturday 98,904 people were vaccinated in the metro area bringing the total vaccinated to over 800,000 in a little over two weeks.

    This is public health at it’s most efficient and most militarized. I know from personal experience. We were assigned a specific vaccination center and time when my husband reserved our vaccines online. When we got to the church, we had to present IDs for everyone, including my daughter, before we could enter the building where people waited in rows of white plastic chairs. We’d been assigned numbers at the entrance, and in what has to be one of the shortest waits in the history of line waiting in Brazil, a woman in a white lab coat, clipboard in hand, called our numbers, and we entered the heart of the operation.

    Along one wall was a row of nurses and firefighters taking down people’s names, ID numbers, and stamping vaccine cards. Firefighters are militarized in Brazil, and their khaki green uniforms with ranks sewn on their shirts made the whole scene feel like something out of Contagion. Along the adjacent wall, was another group readying vaccines before passing them in a ceaseless stream to the one woman who administered vaccines. Needle in. Needle out. Hands off the old needle. Accepts freshly opened vaccine. Needle in. Needle out.

    It wasn’t frantic, but it was efficient. People were moved around the room and back out the door with a lack of pleasantries I have never witnessed in Brazil.

    We survived!

    My daughter did not like it. She’d been totally chill about it until we got inside the vaccination room. The tension and focus that permeated the air had her clinging to her dad and begging to go. And these people were not waiting for her to calm down. I don’t blame them. They’re trying to vaccinate a few million people. My husband and I went first, trying to teach by example. It had no effect. She just got more hysterical with every second, so my husband held her in his arms. I held her arm straight, and the vaccine lady jabbed the needle in.

    For the rest of the day, my daughter showed off the tiny, nearly invisible red dot left behind like the scars of a near-death shark attack.

    As of Friday, there were 20 confirmed yellow fever deaths in our state. That’s 20 deaths out of 80 confirmed cases. The math is simple. That’s a 25% fatality rate. In neighboring Minas Gerais, there have been 109 deaths out 288 confirmed cases. I’m getting my calculator…37.8%. Wow, I hadn’t realized until writing this how bad this outbreak is.

    So if you’re planning on visiting Brazil anytime soon, I’d check if you’re ecolodge is smack in the middle of a high risk zone, and then I’d pack lots and lots of repellent regardless.

  • 20 Fabulous Picture Books with Diverse Female Protagonists

    20 Fabulous Picture Books with Diverse Female Protagonists

    To celebrate International Women’s Day this week, I watched a lot of videos with infuriating facts. As a writer, book lover, and mother of a daughter, this one caught my attention. It made me get up and go straight to my daughter’s bookshelves.

    One thing I can do right now to combat the publishing industry’s gender bias in kid’s lit is help spread the word about amazing picture books with female protagonists and encourage you to buy them. (Because sales matter!) And don’t buy them just for girls, please!

    It’s important to read books with female protagonists to boys because reading about people different from ourselves teaches empathy. Shannon Hale, prolific author in every age group (her Princess in Black books appear on my list) wrote an amazing post about the dangers of not giving books with female protagonists to boys. Reading diversely also develops a realistic idea about the world which is filled with different kinds of people. I didn’t think twice about reading Peter’s Snowy Day to my daughter, despite the fact she is not a boy, black, or ever going to see snow outside her door. It’s a delightful human story and that’s what matters.

    The books on my list are funny, exciting, and thought provoking stories that both girls and boys will enjoy. They’re set in countries all over the world and feature characters of different colors, languages, and cultures. The only commonality is that all the main characters are human female. (Sorry, Olivia. Female animal protagonists didn’t count for this list. You’re still totally awesome though!)

    20 Fabulous Picture Books with Diverse Female Protagonists (In no order other than how I came to them on my daughter’s shelf)

    Journey by Aaron Becker This stunning and wordless book, follows the adventure of a girl as she journeys to a fantastical land with the help of a magic crayon. There are enchanting forests, flying carpets, and bad guys on air ships!

     

     

     

    Normal Norman by Tara Lazar illustrated by Stephen Britton  This book is laugh out loud adorable as the narrator tries to define the word “normal” using a totally average orangutan. Things start to go wrong starting with Norman’s refusal to eat a banana and his preerence for pizza.

     

     

     

    If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff illustrated by Felicia Bond  If you loved what happens when you give a mouse a cookie, check out what one little girl has to deal with when she caves to a pig’s demands.

     

     

     

     

    Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales  This is one of the most gorgeous books my daughter owns. The text (what very little there is) in both English and Spanish goes through the themes in Khalo’s work, such as live, imagine, create. The illustrations are bright and vibrant and straight out of a dream.

     

     

     

    Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch illustrated by Michael Martchenko  I’m not at all opposed to Princesses if they’re one among many different types of characters and take matters in their own hands like Princess Elizabeth. She has no intention of letting that dragon get away with burning down her castle and stealing her fiance.

     

     

     

    The Rough Face Girl by Rafe Martin illustrated by David Shannon  In addition to the beautiful illustrations, the heroine wins the day because of her character. She’s not pretty. She doesn’t have fancy clothes, but she sees the beauty and power in nature and understands what’s truly valuable. Yes, the book is about a young woman looking for a husband, but the message about character over appearance and clothes is an important one for all kids.

     

     

     

    My Two Grannies by Floella Benjamin illustrated by Margaret Chamberlain In addition to featuring females both young and old, black and white, the book also deal with two different cultures mixing! Multicultural, multiracial, and female protagonists! There is no reason not to have this book on your kid’s shelf.

     

     

     

     

    Pretty Salma by Niki Daly   A Little Red Riding Hood tale set in Ghana. What I love about this version is that Salma redeems herself after getting tricked by coming up with the idea for how to scare away Mr. Dog and save Granny.

     

     

     

    My Pet Dragon by Christoph Niemann  Lin has lost her pet dragon! She has to go on an adventure to find him and along the way the illustrator cleverly introduces some Chinese characters. Of your kid isn’t going to be fluent in Mandarin at the end, but thank to this book my daughter is ware that not all languages use an phonetic alphabet like English.

     

     

     

    Menina Bonita do Laço de Fita by Ana Maria Machado illustrated by Claudius  A Brazilian story about a beautiful little girl who so captivates a neighboring bunny that he wants desperately to become black like her. She gives him all sorts of funny tricks to turn black. None of them work. Don’t worry if you can’t read Portuguese. There’s an English version on Amazon.

     

     

     

    The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires illustrated by Mark Pett  Yes, this book is about a girl who loves to build things (awesome!), but that’s not the reason I bought it. My daughter gets frustrated easily and goes from fine to throwing things in a heartbeat. Just like the girl in the story. If you know a kid who has trouble coping with frustration when things don’t work exactly right, this book is a MUST read.

     

     

     

    The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes by Gary Rubenstein Similarly to The Most Magnificent Thing, this book is great for kids who stress about being perfectionists and have a hard time dealing when things don’t work exactly the way they wanted. Spolier alert: A mistake is eventually made and lessons are learned.

     

     

    As Mil e Umas Historias de Manuela by Marcelo Weberson illustrated by Maluf Santiago  Ok, I don’t think there’s an English version of this, but Portuguese and Spanish speakers (because really they’re almost the same language) will love this story of a girl who devours books. Literally. She consumes so many books, she literally becomes a book and the only cure is to write her own story using all the words she has inside of her.

     

     

     

    Wave by Suzy Lee  This is a gorgeous, wordless story about a curious girl, a sunny day, and a playful wave. Lee is a fantastic illustrator from South Korea and her primarily ink drawings are stunning. If your child loves the beach, she will adore this book.

     

     

    Biscuit series by Alyssa Capucilli illustrated by Pat Schories  This is a series of simple stories about a girl and her dog, Biscuit, because it’s not only boys who love their dogs. My daughter adores animals. We bought her first Biscuit story to go with a veterinarian costume. Now that she is starting to read, Biscuit books are great first readers.

     

     

     

    Rosie Revere Engineer & Ada Twist Scientist by Andrea Beaty illustrated by David Roberts  Diverse representation in children’s literature is so important and Beaty has written two amazing books that feature girls in STEM fields. They’re rhyming books and a joy to read aloud, and the illustrations are so much fun.

     

    I Am Jane Goodall by Brad Meltzer illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos  At the end of the video above, the girls asks if the bookseller has any books about a girl going to Mars. Studies have shown that by 5 years old kids already think certain jobs are “for boys”. This book is part of the Ordinary People Change World series. It’s a delightful collection about real people from history in all different professions. Books feature Rosa Parks, Helen Keller, Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sacagawea and Lucille Ball for your budding activists, teachers, pilots, politicians, or comedians.

     

     

    Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe  I remember my teacher reading this book to my class in elementary school. It’s a Cinderella story but in this version both sisters are equally physically beautiful. It’s Nyasha’s generosity and respect for all creatures and nature that sets her apart from her selfish sister.

     

     

     

     

    I Wonder by Annaka Harris illustrated by John Rowe  I love this book about a mother and daughter on a walk wondering about…everything really. The book has a beautiful message. It’s ok to say, “I don’t know,” and the beauty of not knowing allows all to wonder about the mysteries of the universe.

     

     

     

    The Princess in Black by Shannon & Dean Hale illustrated by LeUyen Phan  This is an illustrated early chapter book and was one of the first chapter books my daughter stayed interested several nights in a row. I love Princess Magnolia, and I think her adventures fighting monsters would appeal to girls and boys. I love the message. You can enjoy a frilly dress at the tea party and also love wearing a mask and boots and fighting monsters. A kid doesn’t have to chose between sparkly tiaras and being a hero.

     

     

     

    So those are a few of my favorite pictures books with female protagonists. When you get into chapter books…wow! There’s Matilda, El Deafo, Little Women, Island of the Blue Dolphin, Anne of Green Gable, Smile, and anything by Judy Blume. But that’s another list for another post.

    Obviously there are so many more great picture books not on the list. If I’ve left off one of your favorites, please add it in the comments!! I’m always on the lookout for new additions to our library! Our copy of Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls is on the way!

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  • 5 Tips for Authors Writing During a Breakdown of Law & Order

    5 Tips for Authors Writing During a Breakdown of Law & Order

    This is the exact opposite of what I looked like reviewing pages to send off.

    A month ago, my completed YA novel was selected for the annual Sun versus Snow writing contest, and I got the chance to work with a published author to polish my pitch materials and have them read by 21 agents.

    Four days after the winners were announced, the police in my state went on strike.

    On the day of the agent round, we boarded a plane on an emergency trip to find working law enforcement.

    It was not the first-contest-win experience I’d imagined. I had envisioned sitting in front of my computer during the agent round, compulsively eating Kit Kat and obsessively refreshing the website to see if I got requests. Instead we booked an afternoon flight to a state with police, threw clothes in suitcases, stuffed passports in shoes, and took a taxi to the airport.

    While I might not have been able to follow #sunversussnow as frequently as I would have liked, I was able to learn some valuable lesson about how to get the most out of a writing contest while law and order breaks down around you. Here are 5 tips for writing during a security emergency.

    1. Don’t procrastinate.  When you find out your manuscript was selected to participate, you will be thrilled and checking your email every two minutes for that first contact from your mentor. An actual published author is sending you an email! Keep that enthusiasm. You’re going to need it in order to get everything done ahead of time. From the time the police go on strike until a significant surge in assaults, you have about 48 hours. You’re going to want to send off final revisions before the shit really hits the fan.

    2. Take the opportunity to work on mental discipline. This is really for parent writers. With schools being closed due to security concerns, you’re going to have to write between pouring grape juice and explaining (again) why there are not second helpings of dessert. Think of it as an afternoon of ten minute writing sprints. Interval training for your creative muscles. How much can you get in before the next “Mommy!”?

    3. Use it as a distraction. While your fellow participants are wearing out their fingers refreshing the website hoping to see agent requests, you can use the last minute decision to fly to Rio as a reason to step away from the computer. As you puzzle over how much to pack considering you bought an open ended ticket, you might even briefly forget it is the agent round. When you do remember, it’s going to be at a super inconvenient time like in the middle of airport security, and you’ll be forced to practice patience.

    4. Back up everything! You will be faced with a choice when packing for your last minute trip: bring your computer or don’t bring your computer. Your husband will advise against it given the 400% rise in carjackings. But what if you get an agent request? How will send off pages without your computer? You have to send them while the contest is fresh in the agent’s mind. Obviously you can’t wait three whole days!!! But what if your computer is stolen?!! Don’t stress. The answer is to put everything in iCloud, Google drive, a flash drive which you hide in the pencil jar, and in emails to yourself. You should be covered in the event of a carjacking.

    5. Embrace the idea: Done and sent is better than “Almost perfect, just fifteen more minutes. For real this time.” Look, having to frantically reread your first fifty pages (because you actually got your first agent request for pages! Ahh!) while your family is crammed together in the hotel with the sound of PJ Masks in the background is not an ideal writing environment. You’re not going to turn out ideal work. It’s ok. Do what you can. Remember you’ve already read through those pages fifteen times. Acknowledge your mentor was awesome and helped you write a hell of a query letter that works! Then send the pages. There will be more requests in the future.

    It was an honor to be selected for Snow versus Snow! Thanks to the judges and contest coordinators Michelle Hauck and Amy Trueblood. I do wish I’d been able to focus on the contest, interact more with fellow participants on Twitter, and celebrate the agent requests I did get, but these are minor complaints. My mentor Max Wirestone gave spot on feedback. His book The Unfortunate Decision of Dahlia Moss came out in February, but he still volunteered to be a mentor for the contest! Thanks to him, I have hugely improved pitch materials.

    The contest also inspired me not to give up on Pangea. After no requests for pages from agents last year, I was ready to set it aside and focus exclusively on my new historical fiction, but now I’m tweaking the manuscript and sending it back out there.

    As my daughter’s favorite book, Rosie Revere Engineer says “Life might have its failures, but this was not it. The only true failure can come if you quit.”

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