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In an interview with GROW, he tells us how his passion for children's literature and a thrilling passage that began with "The Nutty Boy '

GROW: How was your relationship with the drawing, reading and writing during childhood?

Ziraldo: Since childhood, I have always had a very strong relationship with the design. In my earliest memories, I find myself always drawing. And a child imagined that in adulthood would draw, paint, work with something on that line. Insofar as I grew older, I met the comic book and fell in love with the genre. This made my drawing were to become narrative, revealing comics, cartoons and cartoons. These languages ​​always enchanted me.

GROW: Prior to joining children's literature, you walked a good road as a cartoonist and journalist, had extensive operations in newspapers and magazines. As the entry into children's literature?

Ziraldo: As I was working on my cartoons and cartoons, I began to like a lot of writing, a taste that did not appear so prominently in my childhood. I made comics and created the magazine in Pererê Chamber of comics, which was monthly and lasted five years (to be extinguished by the dictatorship). With these experiences, I realized I could use this ability to write and draw to make books for children. It was in 1969, so I wrote Flicts, my first book for children.

GROW: Eleven years after Flicts, you launched The Nutty Boy. With nearly 100 editions already published, the book had more than 3.5 million copies sold and translated into several languages. In your opinion, what makes The Nutty Boy so fascinating?

Ziraldo: When I launched The Nutty Boy, I had no idea that the book would have such repercussions that would one day have all this history that built. I believe the Nutty had such scope over the years to awaken the identification readers. Children read the story and identify with the character, feeling something like, "Oops, that's me", "I know what he's feeling," "That's what I feel." Once, visiting a school in the city of Betim, close to Belo Horizonte, I had this illustrated scenario. There was a very simple guy, who participated in a literary newsletter. He turned to me saying he wanted to tell me their experience with the Nutty Boy. Thrilled, reported: "When I was a child, I thought I was the dog, who gave a lot of sadness for my parents and I often felt very guilty about it. I thought I had no future, it was a bad boy. Until one day, The Nutty Boy fell on my hand. Read the book and thought, 'My God, that's me, I'm saved! I'll turn a nice guy. '" That boy surprised me, I had never imagined The Nutty Boy helping children who felt bad about some of those traits. This passage touched me too.

Ziraldo is re-releasing a collection of 26 books, has just completed the seventh volume of another collection and has a weekly TV program of children's literature (ABZ of the Ziraldo). Other than that, in Salvador there is an exhibition in his poster - Pererê of Brazil - and in Rio de Janeiro, is showing the piece I want to be Ziraldo. All this on the eve of his birthday 83 years old.