Three Balls of Wool

With three balls of wool and lots of ingenuity, this mother grapples with a difficult reality and sparks real change.

In search of a freer place where every child can go to school, a family moves from Fascist Portugal to Communist Czechoslovakia. Different as this new country is, however, it is far from ideal. In this new, gray world, the lack of freedom is felt in the simplest things, such as the colors one can and cannot wear.

Henriqueta Cristina was born in 1960 in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, into a family with many brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins and stories (families are places that are full of stories). She graduated from the Faculty of Letters at Porto University and has been a teacher for over 30 years.
Yara Kono was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1972.She started making her first drawings on the wall of the sitting room. Her mother, who at first was not too pleased, finally gave in to the "artistic talents" of her daughter. From wall to paper, from paper to the computer the years have gone by.
Lyn Miller-Lachmann is the translator of The World in a Second and Lines, Squiggles, Letters, Words, and the author of the young adult novels Rogue, Gringolandia, and Surviving Santiago. She lives in New York City and spends part of each year in Lisbon. She blogs about Portugal, cultural diversity, and writing at lynmillerlachmann.com.