It is called the Bancarellino Prize – echoing the famous “for adults” award of the same organization – has reached 68. Edition and rewards the narrative for children every year. As many as 140 middle schools throughout Italy participated in the Reading project and chosen the five finalist books including tomorrow in Pontremoli the choice of the Super Bancarellino will take place. The prize is organized by the Città del Book Foundation and involved over 10 thousand students in the selection, which they read and voted.
This year among the five winners of the Selection Award there is an Messina writer, Mattia Current, the author of Librizzi who had aroused great attention to his beautiful literary debut, “Anna’s escape” (Sellerio), award -winning and published in Poland, the Czech Republic and France. At the current stall arrives with his other delicious creature, “Chronicles of the ADE” (Salani) – History of Michele, a special boy who, accompanied by the bizarre seagull Gabo Gabo, from Stromboli descends into Hades to look for his disappeared dad – with whom he has been going around for schools for a year, loved by the boys.
The other finalists are: “Carlo Angela and the secret of the crazy” by Alessandro Q. Ferrari (De Agostini); “Horror Game” by Paola Barbato (Piemme); “The girl who loved Miyazaki” (Einaudi boys) by Francesco Easter, Raffaella Fenoglio and Silvia Casini; “Sophie, if you are there, beat a blow!” (Gallucci) by Nicola Brunialti.
Mattia, why “Chronicles of the Hades”?
«I wrote this book because I was nostalgia for my adolescence, the first overlooking the life. I never expected that the boys really returned me those 11 years of Michele who makes the fifth grade and practices the art of getting by and experiences the art of “happy fright” for the first time in an ADE who winks at forgiveness and that is more a community of recovery … This book is a hymn to fragility, to defeat the myth of the strength, of the “if you want”. And the gang of happily fright has become really great, for a year now, from school in school. The boys even found the soundtrack of “Chronicles of the Hades” which is “I wanted to be a tough” by Lucio Corsi. It is no coincidence that I will go to Pontremoli with Lucio Corsi’s shirt and with the press of Topo Gigio. Yes, mice can also fly and I would say that even lame rags can fly. And the fright happy this time is mine, which I will meet in Pontremoli more than 1500 boys who will decide the winner of the supernas, but have already rewarded “Chronicles of the Hades” with the selection prize. It has already been a fear of it so happy for us. For me, for Michele and for Gabo ».
By now you are now “the gang of happily fright”, the most beautiful, fun but also tender of the book, which was much loved by the boys …
«Mine and our thank you go to all the boys and girls of Italy, more than 10,000, who voted for us by recognizing a place to the” band “in the hearts of all. Because if there is a certain thing it is that the boys vote and vote with the heart. And for us this is perhaps the most important recognition, because it comes from the readers of that generation to which I turned because I would have liked someone at their age to explain to me that the perfection is a cheat and that fragility is a resource and that losing can be the greatest fortune we have. Because you win alone, but when you lose it is always in the company … ».