O Menino Que Queria Ser Arvore

Using "O Menino que Queria Ser Árvore" in the Classroom

The book by Ruth Rocha came out in 1979, so it is public domain in most contexts but you still need to check the publisher (Saraiva, later reissued by others) if you are planning any kind of distribution beyond personal use. I worked with this text in a literacy program for a couple of years, mostly with fourth graders who were struggling with reading fluency, and here is how I approached it. The story follows a boy named Chico who wishes to become a tree because trees seem simple: they stand still, they get water from the ground, they don't have to deal with the complications of being a kid. The narrative takes him on a journey through different trees, and eventually he learns something about accepting himself. The text is short enough to read in one sitting, which matters when you are working with reluctant readers. What most people miss about this book is that the illustrations by Ziraldo are not just decoration. They carry a lot of the emotional subtext. When I showed my students frame-by-frame stills before reading each section, their comprehension scores on the later questions went up noticeably. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but the pattern was consistent across two years of using the material. The visual storytelling does work that the text leaves unsaid, especially around Chico's expressions and the shifting environments.

I also found that the book works as a springboard for interdisciplinary work. The biology angle is the most obvious one: root systems, photosynthesis, the different types of trees Chico encounters. But the geography piece is useful too. If you are in a coastal region, comparing Atlantic Forest trees to whatever local species your students know creates an immediate connection. I had a kid from São Paulo who had never seen a palm tree outside of pictures and that changed when we started mapping where each tree in the book grows naturally. One edge case that caught me off guard: when I assigned a writing exercise asking students to imagine what they would wish to become and why, roughly a third of the class wrote about wanting to be something immovable or silent, which mirrored Chico's desire. That is fine on the surface, but it sometimes opened up conversations about whether the student was feeling stuck in some area of their life. I had to be careful not to turn a simple creative writing prompt into a counseling session. What I ended up doing was offering two tracks: some students could write about an imaginative transformation, and others could write about a place or activity they felt comfortable in. It kept the assignment honest without forcing anyone to overshare. If you are trying to get a copy, the original edition is still in print through various Brazilian publishers. Search for the ISBN 8570062588 for the Saraiva edition or look for more recent reissues. There are also animated adaptations available on Brazilian streaming platforms, though the quality and accuracy vary. The TV Cultura version is the one most teachers reference, but it takes some liberties with the source material that you should be aware of if you plan to show it alongside the book.

The main limitation of this text is that it assumes a certain level of vocabulary familiarity. Words like "enraizar" and "copa" appear without much scaffolding, and students who are already reading below grade level will stumble on those without support. I pre-taught five to seven key terms before each reading session, which added about ten minutes to the lesson but made a real difference in comprehension. Skipping that step made the sessions significantly longer because students kept pausing to ask what words meant, and the narrative momentum died. There is also the issue of availability outside Brazil. If you are teaching Portuguese as a heritage language somewhere like Massachusetts or Japan, finding physical copies can take weeks through import. Digital versions exist but the copyright status gets murky depending on which edition you are dealing with. I usually recommend checking with the publisher directly if you need multiple copies for a classroom rather than trying to scavenge PDFs from forums, because the formatting on those tends to be terrible and the illustrations get crushed in ways that defeat the purpose of using them.