We find ourselves standing in front of the bookshelf of the neighbourhood library, a little frustrated, thinking: why do I find so few children’s books in minority languages like Portuguese here? The answer to this question, which is also valid for other less spoken languages, is that most of the books are stored in the Helmet storage facilities just waiting for our reservation to take them home.
So, how do we make sure we have access to them and can take them home? That is precisely what we are going to talk about in this article! We will share our experience with Helmet’s collection of children’s literature in Portuguese, a collection of over 400 books. We hope that with this material, we can help other families to find copies in their own languages.
The most effective way to use the Helmet website is by using our library user ID, or with our children using their user ID. Certainly, we are already used to the system’s search engine to find something of our interest using the name of an author or work.
However, with children’s literature, we know from experience that this quest is not easy. We have to familiarise ourselves with it to try and find recommendations for the children’s age level. For example, browsing the Helmet website (in Finnish, Swedish or English) with the keyword “Portuguese children’s literature” or similar terms, yields an incredible result: (0) zero suggestions. How is this possible?
The search for literature in minority languages is a little more complex. Added to this is the fact that librarians are not always prepared to help families in this immense world of children’s literature, let alone books in Portuguese, or any language other than national or English.
Even a little more “hidden”, minority language collections do exist. Yes, they do exist! In the case of children’s literature in Portuguese at the moment, in February 2021, we found 412 children’s books and 36 young adult books. This number varies each month and it is worth checking what is new here (helmet.fi).
Treasure Hunt
The best way to find what we are looking for is to familiarise ourselves with the Helmet website and find the “advanced search” option. Just like in a treasure hunt, we need a password! In this case, it is an asterisk (*). Yes, you will see it in the Kolibríes guidelines in the image below.
The Kolibríes show how to search for children’s literature in Helmet
Reproduction of the advanced search image. Credit: @inafielbig
Pay attention to the yellow Kolibrí! In Hakusana/keyword, we will insert (*) asterisk. And in kieli/language, we will insert Portuguese. After that, press “Search”. We will have then the entire collection of children’s and young adult books available for us to choose from and take home.
Once you click search, many books will appear for you to explore, so we suggest activating the Genre box located in the bottom left corner. Selecting this box will help, in a very simple way, to organise a more precise search by categories that refer to the age or interests of future readers. Unfortunately, the genres are only available in Finnish, but we have translated some for you
- Portugalinkielinen kirjallisuus/ Literature in Portuguese 256
- Kuvakirjat/ Picture books: 210
- Kertomukset/ Illustrated short stories: 108
- Sadut/ Short stories: 56
- Sarjakuvat/ Comics: 15
- Huumori/ Humour: 11
- Fantasiakirjallisuus/ Fantasy literature: 19
- Klassikot/ Classics: 7
- Paksulehtiset/ Board books (for the youngest children): 9
With these resources and those that find by using the search engine, we can encourage ourselves to discover new authors and book many books to read as a family. The site also allows you to make a list of favourite books for future readings and request them to arrive at the library nearest your home or work, whichever is most convenient. Certainly, this collection allows us to continue learning new words with our children.
A glimpse at the books in Portuguese
There is certainly a wide variety of children’s books ranging from books for pre-readers, bilingual books, books with pictograms, books for early readers and even for advanced readers, such as novels, classics, translations by renowned authors, fantasy books, adventures, comics, legends and folk-tales and many picture books. In addition, there are books that are not literature, like the first books to chew on and expand vocabulary, for example. There are even several books by well-known literary authors who have taken the time to write for children.
In the case of books in Portuguese, of the 412 young adult and children’s books we found, 118 were translations into Portuguese. For example, Tove Jansson, Astrid Lindgren, Antoine Saint Exupéry, Beatrice Alemagna, J. K. Rowling, Hans Christian Andersen, Hergé, to name but a few. As well as books from the big films and animation companies.
Among the 256 books by authors and illustrators who speak and write Portuguese, we find Yara Kono, Catarina Sobral, Madalena Matoso, Ana Saldanha, Joana Estrela, Ciça Fittipaldi, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Luísa Ducla Soares, Fernando Pessoa, Rui Lopes, David Machado, José Saramago, Jorge Amado, Alice Vieira, Ana Maria Machado, and Rui de Oliveira, among others.
Building reading nests, creating communities
Lukupesä, “reading room” in literal translation or “reading nests” is Kulttuurikeskus Ninhos’s new project for the promotion of children’s literature and inclusion of families. The project will offer parents and other stakeholders a programme to support and develop their reading practices in the heritage language. Our Lukupesä is made up of a series of training sections and workshops on this beautiful and important topic as early childhood reading. In turn, it will also help communities to take advantage of already existing infrastructure and services in the city (such as libraries and their collections) that sometimes seem not so accessible from the perspective of immigrants.
Another important feature of Lukupesä will be guided tours of the children’s book collections in Helmet through short, online sections to be held in the spring and autumn, where we hope to help in the search for children’s books to read at home. The meetings will offer a place with practical information on how best to find good books according to age level and interests.
For more information, we invite you to stay tuned to our social networks, where we will share the events on Kolibrí Festivaali Facebook and Instagram: @kolibrifestivaali.
We grow the collection within the community
In our case, children’s literature in Spanish and Portuguese from books by Latin American publishers represent a small number in Helmet’s collection compared to copies from Spain or Portugal. We at Kulttuurikeskus Ninho with the support of the Latin American Embassies in Finland, are working to increase the diversity and quantity of books for children and together we have already added over 100 new titles in recent years.
To leave suggestions about any new books, login at this link.
Remember, the more books in Portuguese we take home, the more effort Helmet will put into looking after and growing these collections, let’s increase demand!
Long live this new community of young readers!
Happy searching and happy reading!
Authors
Lau Gazzotti, Adriana Minhoto, Verónica Miranda, Andrea Botero and all the beautiful people who are part of Kulttuurikeskus Ninho www.ninho.fi and Kolibrí Festivaali www.kolibrifestivaali.org.