«What a strange egg," said the Queen. She accepted the black egg from the King with some hesitation, but did as he asked and sat on it. Out came a chick, a bit bedraggled, who would grow into a fine rooster—but far too difficult to manage. He ran through the castle all day, destroying everything, and worst of all, never stopped crowing morning and night.
Nothing seems to straighten out the rooster in The Black Egg—a picture book by Sante Bandirali and Alicia Baladan (Uovonero editions, 2020), adapted from a fairy tale by Luigi Capuana—so at last the King himself goes to the fairy Morgana for help. Thanks to the special grain she prescribes, the impossible rooster transforms into a sturdy young man, but one carrying "a great sadness. [...] But what would make him happy?" The King and Queen, who have stopped fearing his wild ways and have grown to love him, create situations where he can express himself, move in his own way, and show his best self—without forcing him, respecting his talents. And so the fairy tale ends with a beautiful crow that sets everyone free, much to the satisfaction of his new bride.
Fairy tales—through the language of metaphor, delicate and enchanting dreams, and the safety of "once upon a time"—lay bare every aspect of reality on a symbolic level, even the harshest truths, without denying them. This makes them especially suited to helping children discover the world and share its values.
It is undeniable that children's literature, always and not only through fairy tales, has sought to anticipate paths and visions of existence, exploring every angle of it. Today's books often replace allegory with direct truth, standing firm against prejudice and hardship through strength and poetry.
"David loves to read, and there's something else he can do that I can't: at night when our parents tell us to turn off the light and sleep [...] David can keep reading just like always. Some nights I can hear the rustle of his fingers moving over the raised dots on the pages of his books." David tells those stories to his brother, and he can make up extraordinary ones that enchant him. "If David decides to become a writer [...] they'll definitely make movies from his books."
The perspective of the small protagonist in What a Lucky Boy (by L. Schimel and J.C. Mayorga, Uovonero editions, 2019) is the free, curious gaze children naturally have—one that looks beyond material things and finds new paths. His friend Carlo plays with him. At Carlo's house they play battle with toy soldiers. Carlo's father brings cookies he baked for snack time, then they stack the cushion fortress again. At home they need to be calmer. "I don't want David to get hurt, so when Carlo comes to my house [...] we watch a film together." Naturally, all three children learn the different perspectives of reality.
Anna—at the center of The Sea Is Useless (Harper Collins, 2018) by Daniele Rossi and La Bigotta—lives in a hundred-story building. From her bedroom window she can see the sky, but that's not what she wants. Anna wants to see the sea. "The sea is vast, loud outside but silent inside and full of wonders." "How do you know that?" "I read it in books..." "The sea is useless," everyone tells her—her father, her mother, her grandmother. Anna hears them talking at night, sometimes crying. "Why does she always talk about the sea? What will we do?" But Anna keeps reading Moby Dick and dreaming, and finally the adults believe in her dream too. The wheelchair can stay at the foot of the bed. "Today we're taking you to the sea—Splash."
A brave story, Anna's—simple but vital: never abandon your dreams. Even when they seem out of reach, believing you can reach something so desired gives you strength to move forward when things are hard.
Literature gives words to what seems unspeakable, to what appears impossible. It can open unimaginable worlds, tell of traps sprung, of cages opening.
"Some days Mama was a princess and an evil king had locked her in his castle. Some days Mama was a fairy, but a pirate had shut her in a golden cage." The narrator is Lisa; her mother, Adele, is mad and therefore locked up at San Giovanni, the asylum in Trieste. Adele and Lisa—recounts Davide Morosinotto in Franco Basaglia: King of the Mad (Einaudi ragazzi, 2018)—cannot be together. To visit her mother, the girl must sneak away from her aunt, reach the great building on the hill, and slip past the guard at the gate. The asylum is a terrible place: "wheelchairs with straps, bars, muzzles like those for dogs. Most of all she smelled it: the stench of dirt, of tears, of lost hope. [...] And a woman standing with her head pressed against the wall. Head shaved. If hell existed anywhere, it had to be a place like this. A place of cut hair and empty eyes." But it is the 1970s, and soon a new director will arrive at San Giovanni: Franco Basaglia. He sees the asylum through Lisa's eyes. He doesn't want to make it better; he wants to abolish it.
Far from saccharine or affected are the Disney princesses in AleXandro Palombo's gallery, provocatively titled Do You Still Like Us?—Snow White and Cinderella in wheelchairs, Pocahontas with one leg, Mulan and Jasmine with burns. "If Disney took a stand," Palombo says, "it would shape the global imagination of children. It's through their eyes that the world changes." And that is the real challenge.
"It is hard to do hard things:
to speak to the deaf,
to show the rose to the blind.
Children, learn to do hard things:
to give your hand to the blind,
to sing for the deaf,
to free the slaves who think they are free."(G. Rodari)
*Published by permission. This article originally appeared in issue 3/2020 of "Culture and Faith" (pages 250–252), published by the Pontifical Council for Culture.