The Grammar of Fantasy: An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories by Gianni Rodari, Matt Forsythe, and Jack Zipes

Gianni Rodari (1920-1980), who wrote hundreds of stories, poems, and songs for children, was born in 1920 in the town of Omegna in northern Italy. Over the course of his life, he worked as a teacher, an editor, and especially, as a journalist. Spared army service on account of ill health during WWII, he joined the Resistance and became a Communist Party member, and began writing for children in party-affiliated outlets in the 1950s. A Communist until the revelations about Stalin surfaced, Rodari maintained an interest in utopias.

His great respect for the intelligence of children is evinced in every aspect of his writing. Commenting on the child’s game peekaboo and how infants like to disappear the world by putting their hands over their eyes, he writes: “The philosopher who investigates the question of Being and Nothingness, using the capital letters that these respectable and profound concepts deserve, does not do anything substantially different than continue that children’s game at a higher level.”

As regards his stories, it’s unclear whether they’re intended for adults, teenagers, or precocious children, an ambiguity that attests to the universality of his work. He is remembered and loved in Italy the way English-speakers cherish Roald Dahl, Maurice Sendak, and William Steig.

Matthew Forsythe is the author-illustrator of Pokko and the Drum, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, a recipient of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honor, and a Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book. He is also an illustrator for animated films and television. His credits include Adventure Time, The Midnight Gospel, and Robin Robin, a stop-motion animated musical from Aardman Animations and Netflix. He lives in Los Angeles.