Lines, Squiggles, Letters, Words

Sensitively illustrated to show how a child might see and relate to words before learning how to read.

A child who has not yet learned how to read looks out at the world and sees language as such a child would: as lines and squiggles that don’t exactly make pictures but don’t seem to make anything else either. Then, when the child starts to go to school and begins to learn his letters, his way of seeing begins to change.

Ruth Rocha is a Brazilian children’s book writer, and one of the leading exponents of the new wave of Brazilian children’s literature. She debuted in the literary field in 1967, writing articles for several magazines on education. In 1976, she published her first book entitled Palavras Muitas Palavras. Her current work has more than 130 published titles, 500 editions and translations to over 25 languages; also, it has sold about 17.5 million copies in Brazil and 2.5 million copies overseas.