To mark World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April, the Italian Cultural Institute in Madrid has programmed “C’era una volta, in Istituto…”, (“Once Upon a Time, in the Institute), a reading group for children between nine and eleven years of age. The initiative is part of the “L’Istituto dei piccoli” project, a cycle of activities dedicated to children. The aim of the project is to get children acquainted with some of the greatest classics of Italian children’s literature.
The texts chosen are by Gianni Rodari, Elsa Morante and Italo Calvino, by virtue of the essential role that they play in Italian literature and because of the facility with which they offer subjects for conversation and/or creative re-elaboration. On the day of the first meeting on 23 April, the participants, after having introduced themselves and having drafted together the Charter of the Rights of Readers, they will read and comment a short story drawn from a classic of Italian children’s literature: Marcovaldo, by Italo Calvino. In the last section of the meeting, the participants will divide into small groups and will try to reconstruct a second re-elaboration of the book by reshuffling the order of the storytelling sequence as in a collage.
