Quem Roubou meu Bolo?

Quem Roubou meu Bolo? - Book Cover
My new book has just been released. The title in Portuguese is Quem Roubou meu Bolo? and the English edition is Who Stole my Cake? Here is a short description:

Quem Roubou meu Bolo? is a book of fifteen short stories inside one big story: a delicious chocolate cake has disappeared, who has stolen it? From a gorilla to the Loch Ness monster, you will find all sorts of unusual stories that will certainly make you laugh, whatever your age.

Language Study Resource

The initial idea was to write another book with stories for language students, but this time focusing in compact information. Since many people have busy lives and sometimes struggle to finish a book, especially a foreign book where they need to read it with a dictionary, I decided to create a structure for short-stories which are all connected to the same idea (who stole the cake?). This makes the study more fun, as students can learn new words without overloading their memories. Thus, they can stop when they finish a story and carry on reading more some other time. This aspect is also great as a classroom resource, for teachers who want to use short-texts in order to improve their students’ reading skills. And the contrast of stories assist in memorisation, because sometimes we use the environment or context to create memory associations.

I taught several students who were trying to learn languages with fiction but couldn’t find decent books for this purpose, since most things available can be very difficult to read, such as classical literature which is hard even for natives. Children’s books offer a certain simplicity, still, they can be quite ‘poetic’ and sometimes they are not appealing or interesting to adults. In this book, as also in my previous book (Três Histórias Diferentes para Aprender Português), the vocabulary is simple and useful for learning languages, because most of the times it utilises everyday language. And it can be used by children or adults, because the stories were not designed for a specific age range (of course this is a subjective question, but the stories are not as silly as some children-specific stories and there are some chapters which will be better understood by older children or adults, such as “Um Filósofo – A Philosopher”).

Concerning the recommended student level, since this book is made of very short stories anyone can read them with no difficulties. However, if grammar is taken into consideration, I believe students of an intermediate/advanced level (B1 to C2) will find it more interesting as a learning resource since beginners may struggle to follow so many different verbs and tenses (if you are a beginner, check my first publication here).

The English Edition

Who_Stole_my_Cake_Cover_for_Kindle

As I really enjoyed the final result of this book, I thought it would be great to have it in other languages. So as soon as I finished writing it, I began the English translation. Since I’m not a native speaker, I had to find a person who could assist me not only proofreading it, but in creating an adaptation to the English culture and language, and this person was Heather Day. She redesigned the stories so they could be read by students of English as well as by native speakers. Possibly, in future, I may also publish a translation for the study of French.

Collaborators

I couldn’t finish describing this publication without mentioning the collaborators who helped so much and made this book look amazing! Noémie Lanos is the illustrator who drew all the characters and chapters of the book, she is a very talented artist and made an incredible job! She drew the scenes exactly as I had them in my imagination. Natan Heber, who is a graphic designer and painter currently living in London, made this beautiful book cover artwork. He had worked with me before in my previous publication and again he did an excellent job. Finally, Heather Day is the person who helped me to create the English version of this book and who gave me lots of fantastic suggestions for making the stories more fun. I’m very grateful for the collaboration of these three people.

Official Book Launch Day

If you are in Liverpool (UK), please come to this event! We will be practising Portuguese, I will be signing the books Quem Roubou meu Bolo (Portuguese edition) and Who Stole my Cake (English edition) and I will read one of the stories to everyone. It will be held at Cafe Porto, a Portuguese restaurant/cafe and they will be serving traditional meals (including feijoada) and drinks, so feel free to come for lunch if you fancy to.

Quem Roubou meu Bolo? Book Launch & Portuguese Meeting
Date: 10/07/2016
Time: From 2pm to 5pm
Address:
Cafe Porto
14 Rodney Street
Liverpool
L1 2TE
United Kingdom

Buy the book now

Books are available for Kindle or Paperback
Quem Roubou meu Bolo? (Portuguese Edition)

If your country is not listed here, check if it has an Amazon webpage, otherwise you can buy it from Amazon.com.

Who Stole my Cake? (English Edition)

If your country is not listed here, check if it has an Amazon webpage, otherwise you can buy it from Amazon.com.

Category: 1 - Portuguese Learning, 6 - Lesson Resources, 7 - Others, Books Tags: foreign language books, language resources, learn portuguese, portuguese stories, quem roubou meu bolo, who stole my cake

Português Azul

Quem Roubou meu Bolo?

Language Study Resource

The English Edition

Collaborators

Official Book Launch Day

Buy the book now

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

Meta