Publications in the magazine O Papagaio by Maria Cecília Correia

  Maria Cecília Correia (1919-1993), born in Viseu, was a writer with immense tenderness in her heart, who deeply believed in children's education and awareness. Among her papers, three volumes of O Papagaio, a little magazine for little ones, were found. In a letter to Armando Côrtes Rodrigues, the young writer explained: «I wrote two [short stories] about a little green rabbit, in the first days after I learned I was expecting a child. I wrote them to talk to him and tell him about flowers, the wind, birds. I sent them to a children's newspaper and they were accepted». Published in the aforementioned magazine, under the pen name Maria António Gama, were "The Adventures of the Little Green Rabbit" and "Terezinha and Toino". In the latter, we meet a girl who is a war refugee and a badly behaved boy who redeems himself by the end.

It's worth noting that Maria Cecília Correia's book "Stories from My Street" won the Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho Award (1953), and it too included a story about a little green rabbit. In the book, the story is shorter and focuses on the desire to explore the outside world and identifying a protective figure in the Great Tree. The open ending sharpens the reader's imagination.

In the version of the story published in O Papagaio, there's a surprise: the illustrations were done by her cousin João Rebêlo. Both the porcelain rabbit — which today is missing an ear — and the one from the illustration have survived to this day.