Campiello Junior Literary Prize: writing, publishing and recognising children’s books to “build up stores” for a better future
Who knows whether the world really was made “to end up in a beautiful book” as believed by Stéphane Mallarmé. What’s true is that both life experience and literature alike emphasise the crucial role that narration plays in anyone’s existential dimension, so that we can easily identify with the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it” or of Umberto Eco, “At the age of 70, those who don’t read will have led only one life – their own! Those who read will have lived 5,000 years: they were there when Cain killed Abel, when Renzo married Lucia, when Leopardi admired the infinite… Because literature is backwards immortality.”
Wandering between the lines of a book we encounter wisdom, pleasure, memories, and make discoveries. A melancholic thread that, from amongst the shadows of reminiscence and the sorrow of absence, drives us to create images and words that can fill that emptiness, while a cheerful wind ruffles ordinary thoughts and sets life in motion once more. Words have wings, yet they’re as hard as rocks, too. Words inspire thoughts and emotions to take flight, and experiences to take root. Words reveal the substance of things and open up worlds that, before they were put into words, did not exist. Narration is a journey and each journey fosters narration.
Words, essentially, are a very serious game, just like children’s play, and, indeed, we must teach children, sparing no effort and as soon as possible, about the prolific beauty that lies in reading and as such in imagining, discovering, planning – namely, narrating and living.
This is the frame of reference that led to the creation of the Campiello Junior Literary Prize, with the support of the Campiello Foundation and the Pirelli Foundation, an award dedicated to the recognition of authors of children’s books for ages 10 to 14 years, and whose first edition has just concluded. The three runners-up (Chiara Carminati with Un pinguino a Trieste (A penguin in Trieste), published by Bompiani; Guido Quarzo and Anna Vivarelli with La scatola dei sogni (The dream box), published by EditorialeScienza; and Antonella Sbuelz with Questa notte non torno (I’m not going back tonight), published by Feltrinelli), were selected by a jury chaired by Roberto Piumini and then voted upon by a panel comprising 160 very young readers (as per the Campiello Prize’s rules). The award ceremony takes place on 6 May, at the H-Farm Campus in Roncade (Treviso).
The aim of the initiative is best summarised by Roberto Piumini himself: “Those who write for children, who publish children’s books, who promote or reward children’s literature, achieve something that’s much more complex, praiseworthy and even riskier than in other kinds of writing, publishing and promotion, because they’re not attempting to convey existential, cultural or emotional concepts that readers will remember and that will become part of their literary taste; rather, they’re teaching children to express themselves, to learn a cognitive and emotional language, their own language, in the most substantial yet delicate anthropological sense.”
Piumini reiterates that, “Writing, publishing, promoting children’s fiction means providing ways to learn, feel, establish one’s identity, develop one’s imagination and purpose. This is not achieved, as in past literary works, through illustrative examples and role models, or through wise yet threatening admonitions, but through a rich, playful language that, with creativity and dynamism, invites children to enjoy variety and all that the world has to offer.”
Enrico Carraro, president of the Campiello Prize and of Confindustria Veneto, explains that, “Together with the Pirelli Foundation, we have established this prize to promote, once more, literary talent, and to propagate reading among children. This is a new project that reaffirms the commitment of Veneto entrepreneurs towards cultural activities and, as such, the development of the country.”
And, adds the Pirelli Foundation, “we support the Campiello Junior Literary Prize in order to stimulate the writing of children’s books, which are tools to enhance the pleasures of discovery, knowledge, quality of life. And it’s one more initiative, among the many we launched throughout our history, aimed at enhancing company libraries, the dissemination of culture, the nurturing of a ‘book culture’ as a crucial part of responsible citizenship from an early age.”
Here’s the underlying key cultural message: books are essential tools for the acquisition of knowledge and responsibility, for social, individual and human development, for building conscious relationships with the communities in which children grow up and reach adulthood. Reading blends pleasure with the shaping of one’s critical nature as, indeed, playing with the written word stimulates discussion, dialogue, appreciation of others, awareness of the value of individuality and diversity. The adventures narrated in books can enrich young readers’ experience from an early age, while the heroines and heroes of those stories make our lives more prolific, teaching us to use our imagination, build and explore new worlds.
Books are the foundations of a more open, welcoming and civilised “human city” and libraries are like stores of experiences, projects, dreams – stores preserving the staples of a good diet for body and soul, nourishing a better future.
“The founding of libraries was like constructing more public granaries, amassing reserves against a spiritual winter which by certain signs, in spite of myself, I see ahead.” writes Marguerite Yourcenar in her seminal book Memorie di Adriano (Memoirs of Hadrian) (a quote also found written on the inside pediment at the entry of the Pirelli Library in the Bicocca neighbourhood in Milan). A ‘winter of the spirit’ is a recurring threat and, at certain times – just like the ones we’re experiencing now – a particularly troubling one. Yet, playing with the written word, together with our children, does help to build and pass on hope, in spite of everything.
Who knows whether the world really was made “to end up in a beautiful book” as believed by Stéphane Mallarmé. What’s true is that both life experience and literature alike emphasise the crucial role that narration plays in anyone’s existential dimension, so that we can easily identify with the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it” or of Umberto Eco, “At the age of 70, those who don’t read will have led only one life – their own! Those who read will have lived 5,000 years: they were there when Cain killed Abel, when Renzo married Lucia, when Leopardi admired the infinite… Because literature is backwards immortality.”
Wandering between the lines of a book we encounter wisdom, pleasure, memories, and make discoveries. A melancholic thread that, from amongst the shadows of reminiscence and the sorrow of absence, drives us to create images and words that can fill that emptiness, while a cheerful wind ruffles ordinary thoughts and sets life in motion once more. Words have wings, yet they’re as hard as rocks, too. Words inspire thoughts and emotions to take flight, and experiences to take root. Words reveal the substance of things and open up worlds that, before they were put into words, did not exist. Narration is a journey and each journey fosters narration.
Words, essentially, are a very serious game, just like children’s play, and, indeed, we must teach children, sparing no effort and as soon as possible, about the prolific beauty that lies in reading and as such in imagining, discovering, planning – namely, narrating and living.
This is the frame of reference that led to the creation of the Campiello Junior Literary Prize, with the support of the Campiello Foundation and the Pirelli Foundation, an award dedicated to the recognition of authors of children’s books for ages 10 to 14 years, and whose first edition has just concluded. The three runners-up (Chiara Carminati with Un pinguino a Trieste (A penguin in Trieste), published by Bompiani; Guido Quarzo and Anna Vivarelli with La scatola dei sogni (The dream box), published by EditorialeScienza; and Antonella Sbuelz with Questa notte non torno (I’m not going back tonight), published by Feltrinelli), were selected by a jury chaired by Roberto Piumini and then voted upon by a panel comprising 160 very young readers (as per the Campiello Prize’s rules). The award ceremony takes place on 6 May, at the H-Farm Campus in Roncade (Treviso).
The aim of the initiative is best summarised by Roberto Piumini himself: “Those who write for children, who publish children’s books, who promote or reward children’s literature, achieve something that’s much more complex, praiseworthy and even riskier than in other kinds of writing, publishing and promotion, because they’re not attempting to convey existential, cultural or emotional concepts that readers will remember and that will become part of their literary taste; rather, they’re teaching children to express themselves, to learn a cognitive and emotional language, their own language, in the most substantial yet delicate anthropological sense.”
Piumini reiterates that, “Writing, publishing, promoting children’s fiction means providing ways to learn, feel, establish one’s identity, develop one’s imagination and purpose. This is not achieved, as in past literary works, through illustrative examples and role models, or through wise yet threatening admonitions, but through a rich, playful language that, with creativity and dynamism, invites children to enjoy variety and all that the world has to offer.”
Enrico Carraro, president of the Campiello Prize and of Confindustria Veneto, explains that, “Together with the Pirelli Foundation, we have established this prize to promote, once more, literary talent, and to propagate reading among children. This is a new project that reaffirms the commitment of Veneto entrepreneurs towards cultural activities and, as such, the development of the country.”
And, adds the Pirelli Foundation, “we support the Campiello Junior Literary Prize in order to stimulate the writing of children’s books, which are tools to enhance the pleasures of discovery, knowledge, quality of life. And it’s one more initiative, among the many we launched throughout our history, aimed at enhancing company libraries, the dissemination of culture, the nurturing of a ‘book culture’ as a crucial part of responsible citizenship from an early age.”
Here’s the underlying key cultural message: books are essential tools for the acquisition of knowledge and responsibility, for social, individual and human development, for building conscious relationships with the communities in which children grow up and reach adulthood. Reading blends pleasure with the shaping of one’s critical nature as, indeed, playing with the written word stimulates discussion, dialogue, appreciation of others, awareness of the value of individuality and diversity. The adventures narrated in books can enrich young readers’ experience from an early age, while the heroines and heroes of those stories make our lives more prolific, teaching us to use our imagination, build and explore new worlds.
Books are the foundations of a more open, welcoming and civilised “human city” and libraries are like stores of experiences, projects, dreams – stores preserving the staples of a good diet for body and soul, nourishing a better future.
“The founding of libraries was like constructing more public granaries, amassing reserves against a spiritual winter which by certain signs, in spite of myself, I see ahead.” writes Marguerite Yourcenar in her seminal book Memorie di Adriano (Memoirs of Hadrian) (a quote also found written on the inside pediment at the entry of the Pirelli Library in the Bicocca neighbourhood in Milan). A ‘winter of the spirit’ is a recurring threat and, at certain times – just like the ones we’re experiencing now – a particularly troubling one. Yet, playing with the written word, together with our children, does help to build and pass on hope, in spite of everything.