This text deals with the establishment of two 'creative spaces' in São Paulo in 2008. In these 'spaces', with therapeutic and educational features, children had contact with the Afro-Brazilian and African cultures as we have in Law 10,639 of 2003. It was found that the ethics of care was important to success in the first letters learning. This process, besides presenting challenges, makes us say that 'successful literacy is a process inserted into the ethics of' taking care'. Without this, as a priori existential, literacy does not occur.