The Adventures of Pinocchio

About the book

Geppetto makes Pinocchio from an extraordinary piece of wood, but the puppet soon develops plans of his own. The attractions of entertainment, easy money, and escape from school compete with advice he is rarely willing to follow for long. Encounters with the Fox and the Cat, the Fairy, and other figures turn those impulses into a succession of comic and frightening adventures. Hunger and poverty give the story's moral lessons a concrete setting, while the puppet's physical vulnerability makes apparently playful choices consequential. Collodi's narrator moves briskly between affection, warning, and surprise. The question of what it means to become a boy gradually involves more than a change of material, drawing attention to work, care for others, and the difficulty of making a good intention last beyond its immediate occasion.

• Responsibility
• Temptation
• Care and growth

Why read it

For a restless and sometimes unsettling adventure that makes growing up a practical education in consequences and care.

Novel · translated by Carol Della Chiesa