Childhood

Maurizio Braucci & Mara Cerri

A school for rich children shares its theater with a school for poor children. On that stage, the kids perform an all boys cancan, but they also bring to life the winding alleys they walk through every day on their way to school. Those alleys hide many mysteries, like the one about the severed hand… which turns out to be nothing more than a lost glove. The fear disappears, but imagination is reignited by the teacher’s ghost stories, which continue to send delightful shivers through the whole class.
Between the desks and in the streets, the children learn that the line between reality and imagination is very thin indeed. The inner world and the outer world can meet and, if the school is a good one, they do so, perhaps right there on the wooden planks of a stage.

Naples and its narrow alleys, a handful of lively kids, theater, dance, mystery, and spooky tales are the treasures of a humble school for the poor, which the wonderful headmistress Mother Deo offers her young students so they may grow, nurturing their boundless imagination.

Other books by Mara Cerri