This document provides context and details about the Costa Rican children's book "Cocori" by Joaquin Gutierrez. It discusses that Cocori is Gutierrez's most popular book, first published in 1947. It was mandatory reading in Costa Rican primary schools until some claimed it was racist. This was dismissed. It has been translated into 10 languages. The document then summarizes the plot of Cocori and describes some of the main characters. Finally, it discusses proposed classroom activities related to teaching the book, including having students identify and describe characters, draw their favorite character, and act out parts of the plot.

1. Claudia García
Literature II
Code: IG:222
Universidad Hispanoamericana, Sede Llorente

2. Cocori
Joaquin Gutierrez, 1947
 Cocorí is Costa Rican author Joaquín Gutiérrez's most
popular children's book.
 Published in 1947, the short novel ranks among the
most outstanding children's stories in Costa Rica, and
was mandatory reading in all primary schools, until
some politics argued the book was “racist” and
“offensive” to the local culture.

3.  These claims were dismissed and the ex-minister of
education Mr. Leonardo Garnier appealed that the
book does not talk about racism and allowed the book
continues being read in schools nationwide.
 It has been translated into ten languages, and adapted
for the theater several times in Germany, Czech
Republic, Mexico and seven other countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Mh3oPe3FY

4. About the Author
Joaquín Gutiérrez Mangel
(30 March 1918 – 16 October 2000)
 He was a Costa Rican writer.
 Won multiple awards, and
whose children's book Cocorí
has been translated into ten
languages.
 In addition to writing children's
books, Gutiérrez was a chess
champion, war correspondent,
journalist, story-teller,
translator, professor, and
communist activist.

5. Early life
 Born to Paula Gutiérrez Ross and Estela Mangel
Rosat in Limón on the Caribbean coast, the
geographic area that inspired Cocorí.
 Gutiérrez moved to San José when he was nine
years old and studied at Buenaventura Corrales
Elementary and then the Colegio Seminario.
 While attending Liceo de Costa Rica, Gutiérrez and
five other students founded a group called the
Leftist Student Wing.
 In 1934, he graduated from Liceo de Costa Rica. He
began studying law but was expelled during a
student strike.
 Gutiérrez's father sent him to New York to study
English for a year. During his year in New York, he
cultivated a friendship with Costa Rican communist
Manuel Mora, one of the leaders of the Costa Rican
Civil War.
 He worked for a time at the Central Bank of Costa
Rica and joined the People's Vanguard Party, a
communist party.

6. Cocori Characters
 Cocorí: Main character , an afrodescentand who lives near of the
beach.
 Doña Modorra: an old and wise tortoise, she lives in the same
beach where Cocori lives. He helps the turn when he had fallen
upside down on its backs, so it becomes one of th companions of
Cocori during their jungle adventure.
 El monito Tití: A mischievous and playful monkey, Cocori
captures to give to the blonde girl, but when the ship goes, ends
up befriending Cocori and accompanies him on his jungle
adventure. It is the comic character in the story.
 Mamá Drusila: Cocorí’s mother. She is the first person to whom
Cocori asks why the short of life of her pink, but she does not
know to answer. After Cocori disappears into the jungle, he plant
a rose bush for him.

7.  El Negro Cantor: This character lives in the
Community of Cocori and raisin making music with a
flute. With this instrument seems able to
communicate with animals. It is one who knows the
answer to Cocoris’question.
 La Niña Rubia: She is a passenger on the boat up to the
lands where Cocori lives. She kissed him and gives a
rose which then motivates Cocori to start an adventure
in the jungle.

8.  Don Torcuato: It is an alligator three hundred years
old, Cocori is trying to get an answer to his question
and asks to the animal but it tries to eat the child.
 Talamanca la Bocaracá: It is a huge and terrifying
serpent that dwells deep in the jungle, which Cocori
tries to query to answer your question, but found
sleeping a long nap that last several weeks.

9. Cocori
Plot
 The story concerns a small black boy from the
Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, who meets a blonde
tourist girl who gives him a rose. In return, she asks for
a squirrel monkey.
 Smitten, he fulfills his promise by setting a trap made
out of rice and a coconut, but when he returns to
where he had seen her, the boat she had come in was
gone.

10.  When he returns, to his home, he finds that the rose
she had given him had wilted.
 He asks his mother, Drusila, why it had lived such a
short time while other things last much, much longer.
 She doesn't know, so he ran around his village, asking
the neighbors the same question.

11.  None of them know, so he asks his friend, Doña
Modorra the turtle, his question.
 She doesn't know, so she brings him and the squirrel
monkey around the jungle, asking some old and wise
animals including Don Torcuato the alligator and
Talamanca the bocaracá, a snake.

12.  After the interrogations of the alligator and the snake,
Cocorí finally gets an answer from El Negro Cantor.
 He returns home to find that Drusila had planted the
stem of the wilted rose and so grown a rose bush.

13. 1. Teacher starts talking about literature
- General aspects
- Simple words
2. Who is the author?
- Biography
- Context
3. Settle
4. Plot
- Main idea
- Some anecdotes

14. Activities in Classroom
1. Students recall the name of
the book and the author.
2. Students must identify
characters of the story.
3. Students describe using
adjectives some characters.

15. 4. Students draws his/her favorite character.
5. Students are capable to dramatize the plot.

16. Activity with elementary kids
(Video)
 https://www.powtoon.com/online-
presentation/eUrVgKG4ga1/?mode=movie#/
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UV8LM8b-jU

17. American Slave-Frederick Douglas and
Cocori-Joaquin Gutierrez Mangel

18. Differences
American Slave, Douglas. Cocori, Gutierrez.
 Slave narrative
 Written 1845.
 Suffering – pain – cruelty
 The first Slave Narrative
 Anti-slavery movement at
this time.
• A modern fairytale structure
 Written 1947.
 Historical Caribbean events.
 Costa Rican classic literature
 Children’s literature

19. Similarities and Purpose
American Slave Cocori
 Description of some facts.
 Inspire on the environment,
what slaves lived those days
 Purpose: Abolition of slavery.
 Description with many details.
 Inspire in the place where the
author was born.
 Purpose: A web magazine asked
him in an interview; What
message will you send to
children?
- Spend time reading books
instead spend time watching TV.
- Go to the moon! How you can;
on a bike, on the book’s pages,
with your fantasy or on a kite!
- http://www.cuatrogatos.org/sho
w.php?item=154, April 2016.