What If the Grimms Had Been Born in Brazil? The Case of Five (Illustrated) Adaptations

The European oral tradition of fairy tales has been revisited through all sorts of transmediation processes, such as interlingual translations, rewritings, illustrations and adaptations. Mazza Edições, a Brazilian publishing house that aims at bringing the “best of Brazilian and African-Brazilian culture to their readers”, has released a collection of five children’s books that combines all the mentioned medial procedures. Seeking the empowerment of Brazilian children who are not able to mirror themselves in previous transmediations of Rapunzel, Goldilocks and the Three Little Bears, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, and Tom Thumb, Cristina Agostinho, Ronaldo Coelho and Walter Lara produced Rapunzel e o Quibungo (2012), Afra e os três lobos-guarás (2013), Joãozinho e Maria (2013), Cinderela e Chico Rei (2015), and O pequeno polegar (2019). The geographical and sociocultural environments of the traditional oral tales are (re)located by the Agostinho and Coelho’s writings. Nevertheless, it is through Lara’s illustrations that the readers are likely to culturally engage with the adaptations, since they not only supplement the plot events of the sources, but mainly transform the long-lasting Caucasian features of the characters. The aim of this chapter is, therefore, to discuss how the indissoluble relations between word and image make the investigated media products genuine cases of “repetition with variation”.