The Incomprehensible Gianni Rodari

Standard American and British bookstores, if one can speak of standard bookstores anymore, always tend to have a large stock of the best works by national and international writers of children’s literature on hand, especially their fantasy novels and fairy tales. However, none carry the numerous books written by the great Italian writer Gianni Rodari. This is rather bizarre because one cannot enter an Italian bookstore without being flooded by Rodari’s diverse books. Moreover, in some European countries, such as France, Germany, Spain, and Russia, Rodari is well-known, and he even won the esteemed Hans Christian Andersen Prize before he died in 1980. This neglect in Anglo-Saxon countries is almost as incomprehensible as the incomprehensible prestige that he enjoys in Italy. How can this development be explained? And why did it come about?

Admittedly, Rodari is difficult to translate, and only a few of his books have been translated.¹ But I do not believe that the reluctance of American and British publishers to translate Rodari is entirely connected to the complexity of his works. It has more to do with his socialist ideology, his unique Italian humor, and his overt sentimentalism, which can be difficult to adapt and communicate, especially in the realm of children’s literature. Here, too, there is a problem because Rodari never wrote entirely for children; rather, he wrote on their behalf and constantly undermined the position and perspective of adults through silly nonsense and fervent political beliefs. Rodari was a defiant moralist who challenged readers with humor and startling views to question the norms of their world, or as Stefano Panzarasa puts it in his unusual book L’orecchio verde di Gianni Rodari:

Critics have shed light on his capacity to present a modern moral world not through moralizing but through the activity of the imagination, either in his poetry that takes into account the experiences of futurism and surrealism, or in his fairy tales, fables and fairy-tale novels, which always reflect ideas, elements, and situations of reality. Note that he preferred more than anything a humoristic tone, or frankly comical, because it is most appropriate for communicating with today’s children and also enables one to confront great problems (solidarity of people, justice, peace) without becoming too heavy.

(34; translation mine)

Panzarasa’s book is unusual because he came to appreciate Rodari not as a scholar but as a musician and teacher who desired to set some of Rodari’s nursery rhymes and poetry to music, which he performed and continues to perform with a band in Parco Monti Lucretili outside Rome, where he works as an educator. His research led him to gather numerous documents, photos, and essays by critics and scholars that serve as a frame for the CD that accompanies his book, L’orecchio verde di Gianni Rodari (Gianni Rodari’s Green Ear). Although the focus of the book is on Rodari’s “ecopacifiste” ideologies, that is, Rodari’s concerns for ecology and peace, it also serves as an informative introduction to Rodari’s life and work. Panzarasa’s book is divided into six sections: (1) “Who Was Gianni?” (twelve essays about Rodari’s life); (2) “An Ear That Listens,” which provides background about the origins of Panzarasa’s research; (3) “Among the Benches with Gianni,” which includes nine essays about Rodari’s work with children in schools and other places; (4) “From Park to Park,” in which Panzarasa discusses how he has used Rodari’s works in parks; (5) “The Songs of the Green Ear,” which includes eight essays about Rodari’s nursery rhymes and poems set to music; and (6) a small anthology of Rodari’s works that have a clear...