A new children’s book by a Bermudian mother-daughter duo uses Atlantic seabirds to explore themes of Portuguese immigration.

Susana Amaral Pimentel and her daughter, Julia Amaral Pimentel, are releasing Wings of Wonder (Asas da Maravilha) to celebrate the 175th Anniversary of Portuguese immigration to Bermuda.

The women are teachers at Mount Saint Agnes Academy in Hamilton.

The idea for the project was sparked when Azorean historian Eduardo Medeiros visited Susana’s classroom last year to talk about the book he was writing about Portuguese immigration to Bermuda.

“He looked at a display on Bermuda cahows,” Susana said. “One of our students told him that the cahow was our special bird.”

Mr Medeiros’s sponsor, the Association for Azorean Emigrants (AEAzores), had a similar bird on its logo, the cagarro or Cory’s Shearwater.

He, Susana and her students discussed the similarities between the seabirds.

“They mate for life, they lay one egg and they always return home,” Susana said. “The cagarro is the AEAzores’s mascot because they spend eight months out of the year migrating.”

Both birds have an eerie high-pitched cry that leaves some people clutching their ears and others feeling spiritual.

Susana made another connection.

“Like the cagarros and the cahows, our Portuguese ancestors also migrated across the Atlantic,” she said.

In Wings of Wonder, cagarro Carlos and his grandfather become separated while flying near Bermuda. Carlos enlists the help of Clarice, a cahow and many other Bermuda birds, to help him find his grandfather again.

The book is a vehicle to explore topics around immigration: feelings of displacement, new friends, and home sickness. At the end of the book the seabirds must return home, a reality for many Portuguese immigrants in Bermuda.

“Eventually, Bermuda cahow Clarice and cagarro Carlos must say goodbye,” Susana said. “They know they will be for ever friends and will meet again.”

The hope is that the book will be a conversation starter in families.

“An adult can read the book to their children, in whichever language they prefer, and then discuss their own experiences or that of their parents or grandparents,” Susana said.

As teachers, they knew the importance of children understanding their own history.

“The younger you start to learn about your family and community, the better it is,” Julia said. “You come to understand and appreciate the sacrifices and the opportunities you have now. We really wanted the kids to have that chance to really delve into their history. Even if they are not Portuguese, it is great to have an understanding of what the immigrant life is like.”

Wings of Wonder is meant to be a fun book.

“The story is not very heavy,” Susana said. “However, we do touch very subtly on discrimination.”

They received sponsorship from AEAzores to publish the book. Rui Faria, who was president of the organisation when they started, leant his support.

“He was our go-to person, whenever we had a question,” Susana said.

Julia, an artist in her spare time, handled the book’s illustrations. When they started the project, she was in her last year at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying early childhood education.

At first, she struggled to get into the right head space to make the art. Then one day she called her mother and said she had created one of the pages for the book, in a collage style.

“It was an ongoing process,” Julia said. “We would not think about it for months and then do a lot of work on it, all at once.”

Then Andrea Moniz-DeSouza, the Honorary Consul of Portugal in Bermuda, lit a fire under them.

“She said the president of the Azores, José Manuel Bolieiro, was coming to Bermuda in November, and we needed to get it done by June,” Susana said.

After graduating last spring, Julia buckled down, using her parents’ living room floor as her studio. She confessed that she may have got the odd splash of paint on the carpet.

“I would really like to have my own she-shed to work on my art,” she said with a laugh.

Normally, she prefers a realistic style in acrylics.

“Being that this was a children’s book and we had a time crunch, I thought I would try something new,” she said. “I made the artwork using collage.”

Children’s book author and illustrator Eric Carle was one of her inspirations.

Many of the illustrations in the book depict different locations in Bermuda, such as Front Street, St Theresa’s Church and Spittal Pond, and also places in the Azores, like the Islet of Vila Franca do Campo, half a mile off the coast of Sao Miguel.

“Visiting the Azores once, we did a whale watching tour around that island and it is like cagarro city,” Julia said.

Bermuda cahows have also been tagged there three times.

“We want the children who read the book to be able to make those connections,” Julia said. “Even if they cannot read yet, they will be able to recognise some of the places in the story.”

For Julia and Susana, the hardest part about the project was finding the time to work on the book, while balancing their teaching careers.

“This was definitely something we had to do in our spare time,” Julia said. “But we knew it was important.”

They presented an early-run copy of the book to President Bolieiro at the Commissioner’s House in Dockyard in February.

Susana told him about her own parents’ experiences immigrating to Bermuda years ago, and he seemed genuinely interested.

“He was such a sincere person,” Susana said.

She and Julia presented him with a Bermuda rose and some cedar.

“He listened intently to us as I explained that the sprig of cedar represented the Azorean men and the Bermuda Rose, the women,” Susana said. “I also explained that the cedar was from a tree my father planted and the rose was from my garden.”

They are expecting the book to arrive in January, but interested parties can place orders now through the Wings of Wonder Facebook and Instagram pages.

In February, Susana and Julia plan to launch the book in the Azores. They are looking forward to sharing the story with Azorean schoolchildren.

Proceeds from the book will go to the AEAzores, which maintains a museum on Sao Miguel dedicated to Portuguese emigration to places such as Bermuda, the United States and Canada.