menina do narizinho arrebitado

This is where it all began. Published in 1920 and never reprinted in this original form, this slender volume birthed the most beloved children's universe in Brazilian literature. Here readers meet the irascible grandmother Dona Benta, her dreamy granddaughter Narizinho (whose upturned nose gives the book its title), the mischievous Pedrinho, and the incomparable cook Tia Nastácia. But the true magic lies in the characters born from the children's imagination: Emília, the rebellious cloth doll with strong opinions; Visconde de Sabugosa, a corn cob of surprising wisdom; the noble Visconde himself; and the entire animal kingdom of the farm. In this inaugural adventure, Narizinho drifts asleep by the river and awakens in the Kingdom of Clear Waters, a fantastical underwater realm that sets the template for decades of subsequent adventures. This is pure, irreplaceable Lobato: mischievous, educational, and wildly imaginative, a book that taught generations of Brazilian children that the boundary between the real and the fantastical is merely a matter of curiosity.