Gianni Rodari

Giovanni "Gianni" Rodari (Omegna, October 23, 1920-Rome, April 14, 1980) was an Italian writer, pedagogue and journalist specialized in children's and youth literature. He always did a great job at the service of educational renewal. His work Grammar of Fantasy is the main exponent of his basic ideas about the creation of stories, becoming over time a classic of pedagogical literature.

Biography

He was born on December 23, 1921 in Italy. He started going to school in Omegna. In 1929, his father died of bronchopneumonia, and the mother took Gianni and Cesare (1921-1982) to their hometown, Gavirate (Varese), and left the bakery to the children's paternal brother: Mario (1908-1967).).

In 1931, his mother Magdalena had Gianni enter the Catholic seminary of a school of San Pedro Martyr in the town of Seveso (Milan). In a short time, Magdalena realized that it was not appropriate for her son, and in 1934 she took him to the Magistral Institute (Istituto Magistrale; later, Liceo Delle Scienze Umane; today, Liceo Delle Scienze Sociali), dedicated to humanities.

Those were times of great musical interest. Gianni Rodari attended violin classes and began playing in a trio with friends in taverns and picnic areas ( osterie and cortili ), and his mother encouraged him to continue with those activities.

Rodari sharpened his critical spirit by reading works by Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky.

In 1937, Rodari obtained his teaching degree in Gavirate. The following year, he took the position of tutor in the home of a Jewish family who had fled Germany and lived in Sesto Calende. In 1939, Rodari entered the Faculty of Languages at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, but he would abandon those studies after a few exams.

Later he gave lessons in schools in Brusimpiano, Ranco and Cardana di Besozzo. As he himself said, being so young, the teaching he gave was not of high quality, but his classes were enjoyable in which the children themselves contributed their fantasy to help him with his literary works; That is one of the peculiar characteristics recognizable in the writer's work.

During World War II, Rodari was exempt from military service due to poor health. At that time, he won a teaching competition and began to substitute in Uboldo.

Later and due to lack of money, he asked for a job at the Casa del Fascio, and was forced to join the National Fascist Party, a requirement then for all civil servants. In December 1943, he had to join the ranks of the Republic of Saló, and was assigned to the hospital in the Milanese neighborhood of Baggio.

His brother Cesare was taken to a Nazi concentration camp in Germany, and, also shocked by the death of his two best friends, Nino Bianchi, who had drowned in the Mediterranean at the beginning of the war when the ship Calipso sank, and Amedeo Marvelli, who had fallen on the Russian front, Gianni Rodari strengthened contact with the Lombard resistance, left his military uniform and on May 1, 1944 he joined the Italian Communist Party, in whose activities, as in those of the resistance, had already been taking part years before, and for this his membership in the fascist party had served as cover.

After the liberation of April 25, 1945, Rodari began to work in publications in his region, first in the mimeographed comic magazine Cinque punte (Five Points) and later directing L'Ordine Nuovo (The New Order), newspaper of the Communist Federation of Varese. At that time, he published some transcriptions of popular legends and some stories, always under the pseudonym Francesco Aricocchi . In 1947 he ended up at the Milanese newspaper L'Unità (The Unit), where two years later he would begin directing the section La domenica dei piccoli (The Sunday of the little ones).

In 1950 he moved from Milan to Rome, and there he founded and directed with the communist militant Dina Rinaldi (1921 - 1997) the youth weekly Pioniere (Pioneer), of the API (Associazione Pionieri d'Italia), an organization with which he would maintain a collaboration for ten years, until the closure of the weekly.

In 1951, in the middle of the Cold War, after the publication of his first pedagogical book, Il manuale del Pioniere (The pioneer's manual), Rodari was excommunicated by the Vatican, which said of him that he was a «former Christian seminarian diventato diabolico», a measure that would be accompanied by the practice of burning copies of his books and the magazine in the courtyards of the parishes. of the pioneers.

In 1952, Rodari traveled to the Soviet Union for the first time.

On April 25, 1953, he married the Modenese Maria Teresa Ferretti, secretary of the Parliamentary Group of the Popular Democratic Front. On December 13 of that same year, Rodari founded the national newspaper Avanguardia (Vanguard), an instrument of expression of the Italian Communist Youth Federation.

Desde 1954 y durante diez años, colabora en numerosas publicaciones escribiendo artículos, dirigiendo secciones juveniles y encargándose de la edición de libros.

After the period of the newspaper Avanguardia was over and he was called by Pietro Ingrao, Rodari returned to L'Unità, a publication for which he would work from September 1956 to December 1956. 1958.

Despite having been in the profession for a long time, he did not enter the college of journalists until 1957, the year in which, in addition to Rodari passing the corresponding exam, his daughter Paola was born.

On December 1, 1958, Gianni Rodari became a special envoy of the Paese Sera,^[1] evening edition of the communist-leaning newspaper Il Paese. At that same stage of his career, he began to work with RAI and the BBC as the author of the children's program Giocagiò ,

He stopped publishing books in 1966, and until 1969 he would concentrate mainly on working with children, which would be very hard for him due to the enormous nature of the work and his poor health. During that period, in 1968, already tired of Paese Sera, he considered accepting the proposal to move to Turin made by Einaudi, who together with Editori Riuniti^[2] published his works. But he had recently moved with his family to the Gianicolense neighborhood waiting to settle in a new house in Manziana. The wife had work obligations and they did not want to make their daughter change locations at school age, so they stayed in Rome.. When Ada Gobetti (1902-1968) died, Gianni Rodari assumed the direction of Il giornale dei genitori ( The parents' newspaper ), and he would maintain that work until the beginning of 1977.

Using the pseudonym Benelux, Rodari was in charge of a daily critical section in Paese Sera that had many followers.

He visited the Soviet Union several more times, where his books were distributed in the schools of the republics. He also visited Bulgaria and China.

Until the early 1980s, he continued his journalistic collaborations and took part in many conferences and meetings in Italian schools with teaching staff, parents, students and youth theater groups.

After his last trip to the Soviet Union in 1979, his health worsened, he had to abandon most of his activity and on April 10, 1980 he entered a clinic in Rome to undergo surgery on his left leg. in which he had a blockage in a vein. He died on the 14th during the operation, due to heart failure. He was 59 years old. His remains rest in that same city, in the Summer Cemetery (Cimitero del Verano; officially, Cimitero Comunale Monumentale Campo Verano).

His widow and daughter have been invited to activities around his work held in schools that bear his name for many years.

Works

Due to his fantasy and originality, Gianni Rodari made an important contribution to the task of renewing children's literature through stories, songs and poems.

Sus textos pacifistas fueron marcados por Sergio Endrigo y otros cantautores italianos.

List of works

With the pseudonym Francesco Aricocchi:

• Legends of our land.
• The first kiss of Olivia Rodrigo.
• Miss Bibiana.
• Rain of OMG hats.

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• 1951 - Manuale

of the PioniereManual of the pioneer).

• 1951 - The Book of Songs for Children or The book of the retaliation (Il libro delle filastrocche).
• 1951 - The novel by Cebollino (Il romanzo di Cipollino), reissued in 1959 as The Adventures of Cebollino (Le avventure di Cipollino), work that would be adapted after the film of cartoons. An adaptation was also made ballet In 1973, with music by Karen Jachaturián (in Russian, Карэн ̄чатурян; in Armenian,).).の).).).).の).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).の).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).).

• 1952 - The flashing cards (Le carte parlanti).
• 1952 - The book of the months (Il libro dei mesi).
• 1954 - The Adventures of Garabato (Le avventure di Scarabocchio).
• 1954 - The journey of the blue arrow (Il viaggio della freccia azzurra).
• 1955 - Companions deer brothers (Compagni fratelli cervi).
• 1959 - Jazmino in the country of liars (Gelsomino nel paese dei bugiardi).
• 1960 - Songs of heaven and earth (Filastrocche in heaven and in terra).
• 1962 - Fables by phone (Favole to the phone).
• 1962 - Eugenio el Genio on TV (Gip nel Televisione), Fable in orbit (Favola in orbitor Eugenio the Genius on TV and other stories in orbit (Gip nel televisione e altre storie in orbita).
• 1962 - The Planet of Christmas Trees (Il pianeta degli alberi di Natale).
• 1963 - Atalanta
• 1963 - The castle of cards (Il castello di carte).
• 1964 - Cantahistory: stories on foot and by car (Il cantastorie. Storie a piedi e in automobile).
• 1964 - The blue arrow (The azzurra freccia), work also adapted with the same title to the cinema of animation.
• 1964 - my skirt of mistakes (Il book degli errori)
• 1966 - The cake in the sky (The cake in heaven).
• 1969 - Twenty stories and one more (Venti storie più a).
• 1970 - The Songs of the Speaking Horse (Le filastrocche del cavallo parlante).
• 1971 - Many stories to play (Tante storie per giocare).
• 1972 - Songs of heaven and f', final edition.
• 1972 - The business of Mr. Cat (Gli affari of signor gatto).
• 1972 - The palace made of ice cream and eight other fables by phone (Il palargdzzo di gelato e altre otto favole al telefono).
• 1973 - Fantasy grammar (Grammatica della fantasia)f.
• 1973 - The travels of Juanito el Manirroto ('R'I viaggi di Giovannino Perdigiorno).
• 1973 - Machine-made novels (Novelle fatte a macchina).
• 1974 - The song of Pinocchio (The filastrocca di Pinocchio).
• 1974 - Marionetas en libertad (Marionette in libertà).
• 1978 - The ghost gondola (The ghost gondola).
• 1978 - It was twice the baron Lamberto (C'era due volte il barone Lamberto).
• 1978 - The theater the boys the city (Il teatro i ragazzi la cità).
• 1979 - Words to play (Parole per giocare).
• 1979 - Bambolik.
• 1980 - The game of the four corners (Il gioco dei quattro cantoni).
• 1980 - The dwarfs of Mantua (I nani di Mantova).
• 1980 - Little tramps (Piccoli vagabondi).
• 1981 - Tales to play (editing in Spain by Alfaguara)
• 1981 - Fantasy exercises (Esercizi di fantasia).
• 1981 - Long and short songs (Filastrocche lunghe e corte).
• 1984 - Games in the Soviet Union: travel notes (Giochi nell'URSS: appunti di viaggio).
• 1984 - The Book of Whys (Il libro dei perché), compilation of Marcello Argilli (n. 1926) of writings by Gianni Rodari in his weekly section of the same title in the newspaper Unità. The section with that tifrgdtulo had been published from 18 August 1955 until 25 October 1956. Later, Rodari would undertake that work with the title The post dei perché (The mail of whys), which would last from May 25, 1957 until June 5, 1958.
• 1987 - Who am I?: first fantasy games (Chi sono io?: primi giochi di fantasia).
• 1988 - Me and the others: more fantasy games (Io e gli altri: nefuovi giochi di ffefantasia).
• 1989 - The judge on the rocker (Il giudice a dondolo).
• 1990 - Reissues on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of death and the 70th anniversary of birth.
• 1998 - The Song Theatre: Word and Fantasy Lab (Il teatro delle filastrocche: Laboratorio delle parole e della fantasia).F X TI

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• 2000 - Reissues on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of death and the 80th anniversary of birth.
• 2001 - The Cusio accounting fish (Il ragioniere pesce del Cusio), Interlinea,^[3] Novara.
• 2001 - A Christmas toy (A giocattolo per NataleInterlinea, Novara.
• 2001 - The magician of Christmas (Il mago di NataefelefInterlinea, Novara.
• 2004 - The Adventures of Antoñito the invisible (Le avventure di Tonino l'invisibile).
• 2005 - The five books (I cinque libri), compilation: Filastrocche in heaven and in terra, Favole on the phone, Il libro degli errori, C'era due volte il barone Lamberto e Il gioco dei quattro cantoni; with illustrations by Bruno Munari.
• 2010 - Fantasy books (I libri della fantasia), compilation: Filastrocche in heaven and in terra, Favole on the phone, Il pianeta degli alberi di Natale, Il libro degli errori, C’era due volte il barone Lamberto e Il gioco dei quattro cantoni; with illustrations by Bruno Munari.

Other works by Rodari are Atalanta and The missteps of Alicia Paf.

Fantasy grammar

In 1973, Einaudi published Gianni Rodari's masterpiece: Grammar of Fantasy (Grammatica della Fantasia), subtitled Introduction to the art of inventing stories (Introduzione all'arte di inventare storie), which is a pedagogy essay aimed at teaching staff, parents and animators. The work is the result of years of work in the field of fantasy.

On the back cover of the first edition, these words from the author could be read:

What I am doing is to investigate the "constants" of the mechanisms of fantasy, the laws of invention that have not yet been formulated, to make them available to anyone. I insist on pointing out that, although Romanticism has surrounded him with mystery and has established a kind of worship around him, the creative process is inherent in human nature, and therefore it is within the reach of all, with all that joy of expressing oneself.

Quello che io sto facendo è di ricercare le "costanti" dei meccanismi fantastici, leggi non ancora approfondite dell'invenzione, per renderne l'uso accessibile a tutti. Insisto nel dire che, sebbene il Romanticismo l'abbia circondato di mistero e gli abbia creato attorno una specie dicult, il processo creativo è insito nella natura umana ed è quindi, con tutto quel che ne consegue di felicità di esprimersi e di giocare con la fantasia di.

The work is not a recipe book of fairy tales, but an instrument

for those who believe it is necessary for the imagination to have its place in education, for those who trust in the infantile imagination, for those who know the power of liberation that can have the word.

a chi crede nella necessità che l'immaginazione abbia il suo posto nell'educazione; a chi ha fiducia nella creatività infantile; a chi sa quale valore di liberazione possa avere la parola.

In this Fantasy Grammar, Rodari presents the concept of the fantastic binomial, a technique that consists of choosing two words that are not usually related and finding a relationship for them using of inventiveness.

In this work he introduces other techniques such as the story salad or the backwards stories.

The work was officially created in Reggio Emilia, a city very dear to the writer and to which there is no shortage of dedication. Rodari's ideas were enthusiastically welcomed in the schools of that city in Emilia-Romagna, a region that he visited a lot for that reason among others. The compilation was mainly due to the machine transcription by an assistant of the author's loose and long-forgotten notes. These notes, written around 1940, were part of his Quaderno della fantasia, and were recovered in 1972.

The book consists of 45 chapters.

Recognitions

• 1960: Silver Prize. With his book Songs of heaven and earth.

• 1965: Hans Christian Andersen Award.

• 1965: Red Prize.

• 1970: Hans Christian Andersen Award. Until today, he is the only Italian writer who has been awarded with that award with his book The Songs of the Speaking Horse.

• Since 1980, the year of his death, dozens of works have been written about him, and his name has been given to parks, associations, libraries, ludotecas, streets, nurseries and primary schools. The best known Rodari Park (Parco Rodari) is in its hometown: Omegna.
• In 2010, 90th anniversary of his birth, 40th of his reception of the Andersen Prize and 30th of his death, commemorations were held in Italy and in other countries, and several of his works were reprinted.