CRISTINA RAPPA

Birdwatcher and journalist interested on environment, I published my first book for children in 2012: Topetinho Magnifico (Ed. Melhoramentos). The hero is a beautiful little hummingbird captured by hunters to be sold. The action takes place in the Brazilian Cerrado (savannah) and the birds captured by the traffickers managed to return to a free life. This issue - illegal trade of wild animals - has always impacted me, and is a serious problem in Brazil. So, I decided to take this theme to the children in a light way, in a book with lots of action, humor and beautifully illustrated. In 2014, I launched my second book: Florestas - Porque precisamos delas (Ed. Melhoramentos), and in 2015 I participated as one of the authors in a book on Brazilian primates: Primatas no Brasil - Cada Macaco no seu Galho. In 2018, I published another book having a beautiful and menaced bird as hero: O Soldadinho da Caatinga (Florada Editorial). In the next year, O Tiê da Mata Atlantica was released. The idea with those two books was inviting the readers to travel to different Brazilian "biomas", in a trip guided by an emblematic bird of that specific region. Following that trend, I took my first character, Topetinho Magnifico, already known by the children, and took him on a trip to the stunning Brazilian amazon. Thus, was born As Aventuras do Topetinho Magnífico na Amazônia. And, wishing to motivate people to value nature in big cities, as Sao Paulo, where I live, I wrote A Gata Pérola, o Sabiá e o Mistério do Sumiço do Cachorro (Florada Editorial, 2019), inspired by my kitten Perola. In the book, Perola develops an unusual friendship with a bird (Leo, a Turdus rufiventris, the "sabiá-laranjeira", a specie very common in Sao Paulo), and together they will unravel a crime in the neighborhood. This book talks about diversity, friendship and tolerance. In March 2024, I launched As Araras Azuis do Pantanal, another book for youths whose heroes are the social and menaced araras-azuis (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus). They helped biologists, people from the local farms, and volunteers to control a fire and to rescue the injured animals.