A Dona Baratinha — a short story in easy Portuguese

Dona Baratinha is the folk tale every Brazilian child knows by its song: "Quem quer casar com a Dona Baratinha, que tem fita no cabelo e dinheiro na caixinha?" A little cockroach finds a coin, buys a ribbon, sits at the window and sings; the animals come to propose, and she asks each how it speaks at night. The dog, the cat and the ox are too loud. The quiet mouse, João Ratão, wins her.

The tale is Iberian, from Portuguese and Spanish oral tradition (in Spanish America she is La Cucarachita Martina), and it was printed in Brazil by Figueiredo Pimentel in Contos da Carochinha (1894). In the full tale the wedding feast ends badly for João Ratão, who falls into the pot of feijoada; that ending stays out of this telling, which ends at the wedding and the quiet nights in the little house.

The rhyme keeps its traditional words, so it is a little above A1; everything else is the repetition a beginner needs: three suitors, the same question, the same answer. In the Portuguese, notice that animals fazem a sound ("como você faz?") and that barulho is noise, where alto would also mean tall.