My first book in portuguese in a long time; took me almost 3 months and had to read some chapter summaries every now and then, but I finally made it :)

I read to this book mainly to practice my portuguese and I wanted to counteract the dulling of the moral sense that occurs when dealing with street kids becomes an everyday, mundane part of life.

The book consits of 4 main parts: an introduction of the titular young group of urchins, told in the form of newspapper articles; a collection of miscellaneous stories about the capitães (this was my favoirte part); a longer narative about a young girl joining the group; an epilouge of sorts, showing were all the characters end up.

My favorite chapters were:

• Sob as luzes do carrosel (sweet)

• Família (bitter sweet)

• Canção de amor da vitalina (bitter)

I'm not deep enough to appreciate all the communist stuff; I just very easily fall for sappy, sentimental stuff.