The presence of literary reading in schools, aimed at students’ aesthetic education, is one of the objectives of the project Educação, Linguagem e Práticas Leitoras II (Education, Language and Reading Practices II) – UCS / CNPq – given the importance of literature for human formation. However, it is not a curricular component in basic education in Brazil and, in general, it is present in the classroom only as support for other disciplines, with specifi c aspects of an artistic nature being largely ignored. Based on the studies of Larrosa (2003), Huizinga (1993) and Bordini and Aguiar (1993), this paper examines a Literature project applied to students of the 8th year of the elementary school, in which the reader is the focus of the process. The text used in the reading project is Meninos do mangue, by Roger Mello (2001), constructed through the frame narrative and making use of verbal and visual language. The study indicates that the implementation of literary reading, through a proposal that includes the reader’s repertoire and expectations, can be a means of giving voice to the student, in order to exercise his/her own authorship, and thereby contributing to his/her aesthetic education.