This afternoon Duck managed to get me out of the house and downtown to browse at some livrerias. As in Spanish, this word is a false cognate; it does not mean library (that’s biblioteca) but rather bookstore. But the two we went to today were not what you’re thinking. One, called Pauline, we arrived at after much confusion (including a wrong bus that gave us an opportunity to take the metro!) was crowded with tables each holding stacks of individually shrinkwrapped books, and lots of notebooks, pens, and other stationery-store type products. (Duck bought a book about the history of some church or another in Brazil. Classic Duck.) The other one, which we found in a tall building that we first went to the wrong floor for, was called João Paulo II (yep, John Paul II, no relation to the Pope confusingly) and basically carried only school textbooks. We got an English-Portuguese dictionary here, small enough to tuck into either of our bags if we needed it.
While we’re talking about books, this seems like a good time to tuck in the pictures of the São Paulo library where we spent some time. I got a nice tour from Anjelica, the librarian who worked there, including the different types of materials they have. Gibis is the word for comic books/graphic novels, and are different than desenhos animados which are less sophisticated. One of my favorite things at that library was seeing Diary of a Wimpy Kid being translated as Diary of a Banana on a display table of children’s books!
Entrance – so tropical! 
Inside: children’s section on the left; NF behind 
Diario de um Banana!
It was, in most ways, just like a small branch library in the US, though maybe a bit less used. There were only a handful of people there in the 1-2 hours we were there. We did have to sign in and put our bags in a (free) locker. Anjelica did say that people didn’t really know they were there and that there’s another public library not far from there, Biblioteca Parque Villa-Lobos, that gets more attention. They try to have events in the outdoor space that you can see in the first picture and sometimes the sounds draw people in from the street, but attendance can be spotty.
As we departed after orientation, I asked my cohort in the Whatsapp group to let me know if they come across libraries in their cities. Today I got a message from Alexis, who shared the website for the state library in Aracaju, Sergipe, which is basically the Rhode Island of Brazil (smallest state, located in the Northeast; total population under 3 million, population of Aracaju ~600,000). She actually linked me to this site I hadn’t come across yet and seemed pretty comprehensive of all the libraries by state and then by city, which should come in pretty handy, so double thanks to her!
Horntoes in Brazil 