Estrelas

Júlio Emílio Braz (text) & Clara Zúñiga (illustration)

Oficina Raquel

Brazil

Children’s book

ISBN : 978-65-86280-50-0

Book written in Portuguese
World rights available

Estrelas, the new book by Júlio Emílio Braz, illustrated by Clara Zúñiga, is a children’s book that talks about the fear of the dark. The father-son relationship here is important because it is up to the adult to support childhood fears. The fear of the dark, as we know, is linked to the fear of the unknown, of what cannot be seen. This ancestral fear is hidden deep within what shapes us as human beings and, in the view of a child, we are taken to a new point of view, to take something good out of this situation and learn from our fears. We see that the dark is not so dark, because we have our protectors in the stars.

Júlio Emílio Bráz has been the author of children’s and youth books for over forty years, having published almost two hundred books. He became a professional writer by chance: unemployed, through a friend of his brother, he ended up at the old publishing house Vecchi where he debuted as a comic book writer for the publisher’s horror publications. Later, he would also write comics for publishers in São Paulo and for Rio Grafica publishing house (now Globo), and in countries such as the United States, Belgium, France, Portugal and the Netherlands. He published the book Epaminondas Goiabeira e a Máquina da Felicidade at Oficina Raquel and now, his fresh new title Estrelas.

Clara Zúñiga is a visual artist and designer. When she was a little child, she wanted to be an illustrator of the books that her grandmother was reading to her. Then she got big, studied a lot, worked with photography, did scenography of a theater play, worked with fashion and played with making objects with several different materials. She loves to create things with cut, glued, sewn fabrics, making, and telling stories with cloths. Today she feels like she is becoming a child again, doing what she dreamed of as a little girl on her grandmother’s lap.