Lessons in fantasy

Playing with words. Telling stories. And, by doing so, describing the world and improving human society. Beginning with the actors of any future: children. In Lezioni di Fantastica, published by Laterza, Vanessa Roghi reconstructs the story of Gianni Rodari, forty years after his death, bringing to life the intellectual and human side of one of the greatest Italian masters of the twentieth century. Rodari was a journalist, writer and, especially, a man of great culture, who was convinced of the need for sound civic teaching. He enlivened the Italian cultural scene for a very long time, promoting a form of culture that, from school years onwards, would be both profound and popular, informative and strict, with stories and books as instruments of citizenship and engagement, freedom and responsibility. Right from the early 1960s, his books became models for many generations, being handed down from parents to children, and then on to these children’s children: Telephone Tales, The Book of Errors, Nursery Rhymes in the Sky and on Earth, and many more. In her superb, essential biography, Roghi beautifully shows how Rodari “invented a new way of looking at the world, addressing children” and how, using language, words, and play, he “brought the element of fantasy into the heart of the democratic development of the Italian Republic.” Roghi’s conclusion is that, still today, precisely because we are in such difficult times in terms of the quality and clarity of the public discourse and the effectiveness of school teaching, Rodari’s lesson is still extraordinarily relevant.   Lezioni di Fantastica. Storia di Gianni Rodari Vanessa Roghi Laterza, 2020