A Bilingual Story of Queen Saint Isabel

Angela Costa Simões is the author of Miracle of the Roses / O Milagre das Rosas, a bilingual children’s book that tells the story of Queen Saint Isabel. Written in both Portuguese and English, the book introduces younger readers to her life — from her role as a peacemaker to her dedication to helping the sick and the poor, and to the well-known legend of the Miracle of the Roses.

Her work is closely connected to her own background and the traditions she grew up with. Through her stories, she explores themes of culture, history and faith, while making them accessible to younger readers by writing in both Portuguese and English.

We had the opportunity to speak with Angela and learn more about her background, her writing journey, and her latest book.

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you got into writing?
My background is in communications and English, which I studied in college, and writing has always come naturally to me. I have worked in public relations for technology companies for the past 27 years, so writing has been a central part of my professional life. In many ways, I have always been a writer.

My path into children’s book writing, though, came from a much more personal place: our daughter. Becoming amother opened a new kind of creative inspiration for me, and that ultimately led me to write books for children.

You’re currently based in the US. What brought you there?
I was actually born and raised in the United States. I’m a third-generation Luso-descendant. My great-grandparents came to the US in the early 1900s, I believe around 1910. All four of my grandparents were born in the United States, and my parents were born here as well.

So, while my roots are deeply Portuguese, my family’s story in America goes back several generations.

Growing up, what role did Portuguese culture and traditions play in your life?
Portuguese culture was a very strong influence in my life growing up. I always knew I was Portuguese. That was never a vague idea or a distant part of my identity — it was simply a fact of life. It was something I felt from the very beginning.

I’ve been attending festas for as long as I can remember, really, since before I could even walk. The Holy Ghost festas in California are such a strong and vibrant part of the Portuguese community here, and I grew up fully immersed in them. I marched in parades, carried the rosary, carried a flag, and participated in so many ways over the years. I’ve been queen a couple of times, and I was a side maid four times. So, I was always very involved in the Portuguese community.

That connection became a huge part of who I am. Even when I didn't feel like I completely fit in at school, I always felt at home in the Portuguese halls, surrounded by Portuguese friends and family. It gave me a sense of belonging, comfort, and identity. It was a very powerful part of my childhood, and it remains a very powerful part of who I am today.

What inspired you to start creating bilingual children’s books?
My husband is also Portuguese. He’s first-generation, and his parents are from Lisbon. We always knew that if we had children, we would want them to speak Portuguese and feel connected to that part of their heritage.

When we had our daughter, we started buying children’s books from Portugal. Even though they were children’s books and the language was fairly simple, I still couldn’t understand everything 100 per cent. There were words I didn’t know. I remember thinking that if the books also had English written alongside the Portuguese, I could figure it out, learn from it, and grow in the language, too.

So, I went online to see whether bilingual Portuguese English children’s books already existed, and there really weren’t many at all. That was the moment the idea took shape for me. I realised there was a real need for books that could help both children and adults learn together, and I felt inspired to create them myself.

My first book was Linda Menina, about our daughter, about waking her up in the morning and celebrating the loving relationship between mother and daughter. The book was very positively received by the community. Then all the boy moms said, “Well, what about Lindo Menino?” So, we created that version too.

Seeing the community's response made it clear to me that these kinds of books were wanted and needed. They really didn’t exist in the way people were looking for them. That encouragement inspired me to keep writing. After that, I wrote more books, including one about the festas. And now Miracle of the Roses is my eighth book, with many more still to come.

You’ve written several children’s books before. What makes Miracle of the Roses different from your previous work?
A few things make this book different from the others. First, it is the first book I’ve written that is based on a true historical figure. Because of that, I had to approach it with much more research and care. I wanted to make sure we got the details right. There was really no room for factual error. Even if we took a little creative license in the illustrations, I didn’t want the story itself to contain inaccuracies.

This book also marked the first time I worked with a new illustrator, so that brought a fresh visual interpretation to the project. And it is the longest book I’ve written so far. The story is more extensive, more layered, and more involved than some of my earlier books, so it required a different level of storytelling. It is not as simple or straightforward as some of the others, which made it both more challenging and more rewarding.

What made you choose Queen Saint Isabel as the focus of this book?
For me, it was a very natural choice. As I mentioned, I grew up going to festas, participating in them, and even serving as queen. I have known about Queen Isabel and the Miracle of the Roses for my entire life. It was part of the cultural and spiritual fabric of my upbringing.

With my publishing company, Riso Books, I’ve organised the books into four different collections. One collection is about the people we love in our lives — our parents, grandparents, and family members. Another is educational, focused on vocabulary and language learning. A third is about the diaspora, meaning the Portuguese-American experience: how we have carried traditions from Portugal with us, adapted them, and made them our own. The book in that collection so far is Maria and John Go to the Festa.

The fourth collection is about heritage. These are the legends, stories, and traditions many of us heard growing up — the cultural touchstones that shaped our understanding of what it means to be Portuguese. I felt strongly that these stories needed to be preserved in written form, especially for children, so they could grow up hearing them and have them become part of their identity. It is very different to learn those stories as a child than to discover them as an adult.

I had already done The Legend of the Rooster of Barcelos, and then another book highlighted the song Uma Casa Portuguesa. So, because I had grown up knowing Queen Isabel’s story, choosing her as the next subject in the heritage collection felt incredibly natural.

Why did you feel this story was important to share with children today?
I felt it was important for several reasons. One is that the festas have continued for generations here in California and in other states and Canada. Some of these festas have been going on for more than one hundred years. Children still march in the parades and wear the crowns, but I sometimes wonder whether they fully know why we do these things. They may have heard of Queen Isabel. They may have seen her represented on a parade float. But do they really know who she was? Do they know her story? Do they understand the impact she had, both in Portuguese culture and more broadly in the world? I wanted to help make sure people knew the whole story, not just the symbol.

Her legacy as a peacemaker, a deeply charitable and generous person, and a woman who dedicated her life to helping others is so meaningful. In many ways, that part of her life is even more important than the miracle itself. The miracle is what she is most famous for, but when you learn more about her life, you see that she was truly a model of kindness, charity, and service. That is a legacy I think children — and adults — can still be inspired by today.

What do you hope young readers take away from Miracle of the Roses?
I hope young readers feel proud that Queen Saint Isabel was a queen of Portugal and that, if they are Portuguese, this is someone they can identify with and look up to. I hope they see in her an example of kindness, prayer, charity, and peacemaking.

I hope they come away understanding that we can make a much stronger impact in the world when we choose to be loving, forgiving, and kind. Those choices are not always easy. They certainly were not easy in the time when Isabel lived, which was a very difficult and often turbulent time. If she could live that way in her world, then surely we can strive to do the same in ours.

And I also hope they learn something new and truly enjoy the book.

How did you approach telling a historical and religious story in a way that’s engaging for kids?
That was a very important question for me throughout the writing process. As I learned more about Isabel’s life, I also learned about what life was like during that period, and some of those realities are not especially easy to translate directly into a children’s book.

For example, when Isabel had her children, family life looked very different from what we think of as family life today. It was common for babies to be cared for by wet nurses, maids, and nursery staff, and parents might not even see their children every day in the way modern families do. That is historically interesting, of course, but it is also not particularly relatable or emotionally accessible to young children.

So in places like that, we took a bit of creative license. We included a family photo of the four of them together in the book because it feels more understandable and meaningful to a child reader. That was one way of softening historical complexity while still honouring the essence of the story.

The illustrations were also incredibly important. For instance, one of the most dramatic parts of Isabel’s life is that she rode out onto the battlefield to stop the conflict between her husband and son. That is a very powerful scene, but for a children’s book, it has to be portrayed in a way that is impactful without being frightening. I think Mariana did a wonderful job visually interpreting those moments, keeping them emotionally strong while still child-appropriate.

And of course, the language mattered too. I worked hard to simplify the language as much as possible so that even though Isabel lived a very complex life, the key ideas would be understandable and engaging for young readers.

What was the most interesting thing you discovered while researching Queen Isabel?
I think there were two things that really stood out to me.

The first was learning that she rode out onto the battlefield twice to stop two separate wars. That is just incredible to me. What extraordinary courage and strength that must have taken. And the fact that she succeeded — that she was actually able to stop both wars — makes her ability as a peacemaker even more remarkable. I found that deeply inspiring.

The second was learning that queens in Portugal at that time had their own sources of income. It wasn’t simply a matter of receiving money from the king. They earned income from their own lands and villages. What amazed me was that Isabel essentially spent the money she had on charity—opening hospitals, schools, and homes for women. She used what she had to serve others. She put her resources back into her people, and I thought that was extraordinary.

You mentioned the story is personal to you. Can you share what it means to you?
Yes, absolutely. As I mentioned, I grew up knowing about Queen Isabel and the Miracle of the Roses. For much of my life, I understood the festas as being connected to that miracle, and I always knew she was central to that tradition. So in that sense, this story has always been part of my world.

It is personal to me because she is someone I have known about my entire life. Writing a book about her — and then learning even more deeply about who she was — felt very meaningful. It was special to take something that had long been part of my cultural memory and turn it into a book that could help preserve and share that story with children.

Did writing this book change the way you see the story of Queen Isabel herself?
Yes, it definitely did. I see her much more fully now. Before, like many people, I mainly associated her with the Miracle of the Roses. But learning more about her life showed me that she was so much more than that one famous moment.

She truly embodied generosity, selflessness, compassion, and service. She dedicated herself to caring for others and using her position to do good. That is incredibly admirable to me, and I think the world would be a better place if more of us tried to follow that example.

Why was it important for you to publish the book in both Portuguese and English?
Publishing bilingual books is deeply important to me, and all of my books have been bilingual and will continue to be bilingual moving forward.

One of the biggest reasons is that, unfortunately, we are losing the Portuguese language in the diaspora, at least here in the United States. As families intermarry and blend cultures — which is a beautiful thing — there will naturally be people in our lives who do not speak Portuguese at all. That makes it even more important to create ways for everyone to learn together.

If a book can help a child learn Portuguese while also helping a parent, grandparent, or extended family member understand the language alongside them, then that becomes a meaningful tool for preserving the language. I really believe bilingual books can play an important role in helping maintain that connection.

How do you see bilingual books helping children and families today?
In some ways, this goes hand in hand with what I just mentioned. As we struggle to maintain the language, bilingual books create an opportunity for parents and children to learn together.

That is especially meaningful if you are coming to the language without already knowing it well. For example, a non-Portuguese parent can still read the book with their child and learn alongside them. Even someone like me — a third-generation Portuguese American — may feel connected to the culture without having grown up fluent in the language. The most Portuguese I knew as a child was mostly the names of foods and a few phrases like “cala boca.” I really did not grow up speaking the language fluently.

It has only been in adulthood that I have worked to improve my Portuguese, and that is much harder. So I truly believe that introducing the language to children at an early age gives them a much better chance of carrying it with them throughout their lives.

What was your writing process like for this book?
I started by doing initial research on Isabel’s life — when she was born, where she was born, how she came to Portugal, and the major events that shaped her life. I needed that historical foundation first.

From there, I used AI to help create an initial structure for the text. It gave me a starting framework. Then I personally edited it extensively and broke the story into sections based on how I wanted the text to appear page by page. In a children’s book, you usually want no more than two or three sentences per page, and sometimes even three sentences can feel like too much, so that required a lot of careful shaping.

Although I used AI in the early stage for structure, I ended up editing the text quite a bit myself. I also had multiple people in my life review it, including my mom, my husband, and the historian I worked with. Each of them helped refine the language and improve the text in different ways.

Then, for each section of the story, I also used AI to generate some initial illustration concepts. Once I found the illustrator, she and I went through each part of the book individually and discussed what the visuals might look like. Even though the AI concepts gave us something to react to, the final illustrations often ended up looking completely different because of the conversations we had and the creative decisions we made together.

How did you collaborate with the illustrator to bring the story to life?
We collaborated very closely. As I mentioned, we discussed each illustration in detail and talked through exactly what we wanted to convey. She would create a sketch and send it to me, and then we would review it together. If something needed adjusting, we would tweak it. If something needed to be reimagined more substantially, we would do that, too.

She also did a great deal of her own research into the period — the clothing, the shapes of the crowns, the jewellery, the dresses, the architecture, and the general visual atmosphere of the time when Isabel lived. That level of care really mattered.

On my side, I also helped her understand what festas in California look like, since she had never attended one or seen them in person. I wanted to communicate how unique they really are. They do not exactly resemble what you see in Portugal today, so it was important to explain that cultural distinction. I think that part of the process was educational for her as well.

Overall, we went back and forth quite a bit, and it was a wonderful collaboration. She was fantastic to work with.

The book highlights kindness, faith, and community. Why are these values important today?
I think these values may be more important today than ever. We are living in a time of so much division, not just in our country but globally. On top of that, social media and technology often keep us in front of screens instead of in meaningful connection with one another.

Because of that, I think we have lost some of that human closeness and shared sense of community. We need more kindness, more faith, and more community in our lives. If we had more of those things, I believe we would see less violence, less depression, and less hostility. These values are not old-fashioned ideals — they are deeply necessary ones.

How do you think stories like this can shape children’s understanding of the world?
I think stories like this can help children understand that, even hundreds of years ago, people faced challenges like war, hunger, and hardship. Those struggles are not new. But what is also timeless is the ability of individuals to choose compassion and action.

When children learn about someone like Isabel, they can begin to understand that one person really can make a difference. She chose to do her part to make the world better, and that is something we can all do in our own ways.

My own personal mantra is to leave this planet better than how I found it. That does not necessarily have to mean changing the whole world on a grand scale. But if I can make a meaningful impact, even within the Portuguese community, then I feel that effort has been worthwhile.

Are you planning more books like this in the future?
Yes, absolutely. I have a very long list of book ideas that I would love to write across all of the different collections I’ve created. I truly hope to keep writing children’s books for as long as I am able.

What other Portuguese stories or traditions would you like to explore?
There are so many — really too many to count. From a diaspora perspective, I would love to explore traditions such as the danças de carnaval, the filarmónicas, folklore, and, of course, soccer, because they are all vibrant parts of our community life.

From a heritage standpoint, there are wonderful stories and traditions, such as São João, Santo António, and the manjerico, all of which could become beautiful children’s books. And in the collection centred on love and family, there are still so many possibilities involving different family members and relationships.

So there is truly no shortage of topics. There are many, many more stories to tell.