Sobre contar e ouvir verdades e mentirinhas: Considerações sobre narrativas a partir de livros infantis e brincadeiras em uma sala de aula

This article aims to discuss the oral narratives formulated by children mainly through a dialogue with narratives written by adults for children, such as those of children’s books and fairy tales. For this purpose, I present some of the narratives, plays and issues that I encountered through ethnography with children between three and seven years old in a school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Drawing on participant observation, I also analyse some of the discussions that emerge in the classroom around the distinction between narratives that are “true” and those that are “make-believe”, outlining a brief dialogue between this distinction as the children operationalise it and as early anthropologists conceptualise it.