What are some iconic or famous books from your childhood, and are they typically home-grown (ie Mexican, Argentinian, etc), regional (from another Latin country) or translations of American and European books?
If you had to recommend one book for a foreigner to read in order to enjoy or understand your culture more, what would it be?
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Menina bonita do laço de fita. I believe every Brazilian kid read it when we were small
Not really a children book but Mafalda is great.
One of our most known and cool children author is Elsa Bornemann.
For kids: Los cazaventuras -Helen Velando (an Uruguayan family on different adventures around cool places on LATAM)
El Sapo Ruperto – Roy Berocay(the stories of a detective frog that lives on a river on the countryside)
For kids that want to be 100% uruguayan: cuentos de la selva-Horacio Quiroga (I loved this as a child, super creepy stories, I even recommend this to adults)
Paco el chato and El viaje (about a mouse who changes his foot to travel to another town) El libro del perrito left an undoubtedly mark in the cultural landscape of this country.
In the same line, La rata con thinner is a new classic, iykyk, jk jk, don’t give that to a kidKinda related, the mexican estate sponsored editorial FCE (Fondo de Cultura Económica) has (had?) a line called A la orilla del viento which was aimed at kids and teenagers with a sizeable collection of books with a huge variety of themes and authors, some national and some from other spanish speaking countries. Those books are really good and a great way to introduce kids to reading, I have a soft spot for them because that’s how I got introduced to the joy of reading.
In Brazil all the Monteiro Lobato “Sítio do Pica-Pau Amarelo” stuff is a huge presence.
Papelucho and Ogú y Mampato are both very well done.
Monteiro Lobato books ( O sítio do Picapau Amarelo). I used my wife’s old collection while learning Portuguese.
PAPELUCHO
Caídos del mapa, by María Ines Falconi.
Literally any book from Elsa Bornemann, but specially Socorro.
Pateando lunas (i don’t remember the author).
Any book by Pablo de Santis.
Octubre, un crimen by Norma Huidobro.
Anything by Liliana Bodoc (this is more young adult but still)
Los ojos del perro siberiano, by Antonio Santa Ana (young adult too, like pg 13)
Anything by Martín Blasco, I enjoyed XVZ: Archivos ultrasecretos.
I’ll edit if I remember more but I read all of these from ages 6 to 13. Except Bodoc, I read her as a teenager but I put her in the list because I believe she truly represents Argentina in her books. The ones I read are at least pg13 but I’ve heard she has some that are for younger kids like El espejo africano (i haven’t read it so don’t trust me on that).