Tuesday, March 29, 2011

For Avent-Garde Kids


Last summer, I took Primo to participate in a super-cool workshop of an avant-garde theater production for kids of one of our favorite tales, Pinocchio. A few months ago, we saw an early version of the work-in-progress which was fantastic. Now they've designed an incredible-looking edition of the original Collodi tale, as a companion book to go along with the full production of Pinocchio in late April. The illustrations, by London visual artist David Shillinglaw are captivating in and of themselves. You can read sample of the pages here.

You can buy the book, help fund the project (after all, the theater company's a not-for-profit) and even get a handwritten postcard from Pinocchio sent to your child here. Here's a description of the book and you will understand how handing it to your child will make you feel like a better mother, instantly:

"For many people, Disney’s beloved (and largely sanitized) version of the Pinocchio story is all that they know. Very few are aware that, in Carlo Collodi's original tale, Pinocchio begins as a mischievous and selfish wild child, the Blue-Haired Fairy first appears as a corpse, the Terrible Shark has asthma, and the Talking Cricket is swiftly dispatched by Pinocchio with a hammer.

An interactive story/coloring book, our version will be printed in black and white with a deliberately minimalist design. A box of crayons will be included with each book to encourage young readers to not only to read it, but to deface it, complete it, reimagine it, and otherwise make it their own."