EXPRESSÕES LITERÁRIAS INFANTIS E JUVENIS HÍBRIDAS CRÍTICAS: ABECÊ DA LIBERDADE: A HISTÓRIA DE LUIZ GAMA, O MENINO QUE QUEBROU CORRENTES COM PALAVRAS (2015), DE TORERO E PIMENTA – VIAS À FORMAÇÃO DO LEITOR LITERÁRIO DECOLONIAL

Abstract

With this article, we seek to demonstrate how hybrid narratives of history and fiction for children and young readers are potential instruments for the formation of the decolonial literary reader already in the early stages of schooling. To this end, we analyze the hybrid work Abecê da liberdade: a história de Luiz Gama, o menino que quebrou correntes com palavras (2015), by Torero and Pimenta. This work—aimed at a child and youth audience—reveals, through the configuration of characters who have been demarginalized by Literature, how it is possible to revisit Brazil’s colonial past and delve into paths forgotten or concealed by official historiography. Such a reading process promotes the decolonization of minds, identities, and the imagination of the reader in formation. In this way, we anchor our discussion in the theoretical assumptions about hybrid narratives of history and fiction for children and young readers by Santos and Fleck (2025), as well as in decolonial studies by Mignolo (2007; 2017) and Fleck (2017; 2023; 2024; 2025), among others. We conclude that the work of Torero and Pimenta (2015) is a textuality capable of breaking with colonial precepts and paradigms crystallized in the collective imagination about past events and subjects. Consequently, it becomes a privileged pathway for forming more critical, decolonial literary readers in Elementary Education.

Keywords: Decolonial Studies; Hybrid Narratives of History and Children’s and Youth Fiction; Enslavement; Formation of the Decolonial Literary Reader.