Ring a ring-o’ roses

Ring a ring-o'roses? What game is this? The one where children hold hands? Actually no, this is the one where teenagers spin around, faster and faster nowadays, to the speed of WhatsApp and digital technology. Ten episodes, a thousand hues. A merry-go-round of love, friendship, crushes, betrayals. A wheel that, seemingly, will never stop, going at a hundred miles an hour; a churning of feelings and actions which are often difficult to fully grasp and understand when “you're in the thick of it”. Agnese Innocente and Sergio Rossi discuss contemporary love, with honesty and clarity, narrating young people just as they would narrate themselves. Through a very tender perspective and equally gentle drawings, readers can observe, almost in silence, almost without wanting to intrude, the blooming of first love, the hopes and expectations of the protagonists, within an interplay that doesn't allow room for judgement or prejudice, only for the chance to recognise sides of one's own self (perhaps never noticed before) in its details. The power of this graphic novel, winner of the 2021 Andersen Prize, can be summarised in one single word: empathy. The jury's argument for awarding the prize is a bit more detailed: “for its ability to not only transpose a classic drama into comic book language but also, and above all, for having done so with an inventiveness that perfectly interprets the sensitivity and turmoil experienced by contemporary teenagers.” Girotondo by Sergio Rossi, illustrated by Agnese Innocente Il Castoro, 2020