My Sweet Orange Tree Author:Jose Mauro de Vasconcelos This ia an autobiographical story about he author's own childhood. Zeze is a heartbreakingly precocious and adorable little boy. But his poor family can't bestow enough attention to him for them to understand that his pranks and misgivings are results of innocent childhood imaginations. Zeze becomes the easy target of his family's frustration. H... more »is family, father, mother, two big sister, one big brother, and one little brother, they are not bad people but they fall to that trap of unleashing their own misery to someone who is even more defenseless than themselves.
Nobody could give Zeze the love and understanding he so craves. Zeze turns to his own imagination and create wonderful world of his own in his mind and in the process, discovers that the young sweet orange tree in his backyard can talk to him! They become the best friend. Later, Zeze finds another friend in the kind, old Portuguese man. But the pain of living soon invades even this precious world of Zeze and he has to learn to give up innocence and to grow up...
This book shows how desolate a child in poverty can be but also at the same time shows how beautifully enriching love and friendship can be to a lonely heart.« less