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enthusiasm. However, it was not to be an easy journey for

me and although the publishing house was based in

England with offices all over the world and a list of 2000

titles: The British publishing company specialised in

educational books and in particular reference books and

had no children’s story titles in their catalogue. They did

have children’s books in a variety of series, but they were

focused on helping a young person to face the problems

that family life can give; for example, the death of a relative

the death of a pet, divorce, bullying, love, hate and

jealousy. They had no fictional stories.

All through the 1980s I had worked in education. At the

age of 41 I gained my Batchelor of Education and my

Teaching Certificate of Higher Education and entered

another new career in a college of further education,

eventually climbing my way up the ladder from a lecturer

to a Head of Department in six years. This new-found

career I adored but my life once again changed, and I

found myself in Brazil heading up a publishing company.

It all seems a huge jump now but at the time it all made

sense.

The Brazilian stereotype is not generally a reader and in

fact at the time I arrived in Brazil there were more

bookshops in Paris than there were in the whole of Brazil.

However, they did have a government-sponsored reading

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