Children’s literature and the politeness alterity left to the next page

abstract Rorbeto is a polydactyl boy who beckons us and signals the presence of a different body in children's literature. Although in in the present time, various discourses and images, dialogues and characters are found in children's literature, the allusion to a different body in children's literature is still sparse or incomplete. Often, when this body appears in a literary work it can contribute to stereotypes and stigmas, which stem from cultural processes that contribute to the construction of corporal difference as a means of exclusion. The literary work Um garoto chamado Rorbeto (2005), written by Gabriel O Pensador, and illustrated by Daniel Bueno, includes another type of body, one that is larger and distinct from the normative body that traditionally appears in children’s literature. This body is a demanding body that is neither displaced nor demystified.