A beautiful guide to fairy tales and their potential for teaching creative storytelling to children, from the father of modern Italian children’s literature and featuring radiant illustrations from Matthew Forsythe and a refreshed translation from Jack Zipes.
“Holds great value for the adults who teach kids and the adults who write for them.“ —Mac Barnett, U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, for the New York Times
This handbook for writers of all ages and kinds is essential reading for teachers and creatives. It offers a playful, practical path to finding your own voice through the power of storytelling. Full of ideas, glosses on fairy tales, stories, and wide-ranging activities, this book changed how creative arts were taught in Italian schools.
Gianni Rodari is not only revered as a children’s author, but also remembered for his visionary pedagogy, and it is these two fields he combines in this revolutionary essay collection.
Translated into English by acclaimed scholar of folklore and children’s literature Jack Zipes, and with original art from illustrator Matthew Forsythe, this edition of The Grammar of Fantasy is one to live with and return to for its humor, intelligence, and remarkable understanding of children.
“The ultimate synthesis of Rodari’s exuberant knowledge, a book of both pedagogy and poetics, poetry for teachers and pedagogy for poets.” —Italo Calvino
Praise
"Holds great value for the adults who teach kids and the adults who write for them... The book is funny, freewheeling and angry, animated by Rodari’s fury at an educational system in which ‘imagination is still treated like a poor relation of attention and memory...’ He offers classroom games that puncture the barriers between academic disciplines... The Grammar of Fantasy is less a manual on how to write for kids than a treatise on why we must respect them as readers, written by an author whose life’s work was underpinned by an appreciation of the child’s ‘underlying seriousness, and the moral engagement that she brings to everything she does.’"
—The New York Times, Mac Barnett, U.S. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature
"I'm having a hard time containing my excitement... It’s great for teachers and the classroom, but also for any artist or person who is looking to be more creative. Honestly, it would even be great in the self-help category, on how to unleash your own voice."
—A Fuse #8 Production (A School Library Journal blog), Betsy Bird
“The ultimate synthesis of Rodari’s exuberant knowledge, a book of both pedagogy and poetics, poetry for teachers and pedagogy for poets.”
—Italo Calvino
"This is a spectacularly gorgeous book (as is everything from Enchanted Lion)."
—Golden Hour Books (Indianapolis, IN)
