Carlo Collodi - a great name in children's literature

With his rich imagination and love for children, Carlo Collodi created a wonderful story of the wooden boy Pinocchio on his journey to become a real person. Thanks to the story of Pinocchio, Collodi has become a big name in the world of children's literature. A national fund for Carlo Collodi has been established to preserve and promote the values ​​that he wanted to convey to readers.

Carlo Collodi's real name is Carlo Lorenzini, born on November 24, 1826 in a small town near Florence, Italy.

The story tells about the arduous journey with many challenges to become a real person of the wooden boy Pinocchio. At first, Pinocchio was just a wooden stick that could talk and laugh like a child, found by the carpenter Mister Cherry, then this carpenter gave the wooden stick to Geppetto. The kind Geppetto, who had no children, created the wooden boy Pinocchio with the wish to travel the world with his "son".

Although he is a puppet, Pinocchio looks like a pure and innocent boy. He is very curious, simple-minded, not persistent and has no opinions, so it is difficult for him to overcome temptations. That is why his development process is extremely difficult and not smooth.

He wanted to do good things to please his father, but then he made one mistake after another. For example, because he was having fun at Mr. Giovani's puppet theater, he sold the book that his father had to exchange for his only coat in the cold winter. Or Pinocchio fell for the Cat and the Fox's trick and lost five gold coins, then lied to the Blue-Haired Fairy, causing his nose to grow longer. Not only that, Pinocchio also listened to his bad friends and skipped school to go to the Land of Toys, as a result he was turned into a donkey, then swallowed by a shark. Here, he met his father again... And finally Pinocchio learned to correct his mistakes and became a real boy.

With a captivating and humorous writing style, through the wooden boy Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi has brought us a profound lesson about the process of growing up of each person. It is a process of grinding and training full of hardships. Only when you know how to overcome your own weaknesses and resist temptations can you go in the right direction and truly grow up.

Carlo Collodi, whose real name was Carlo Lorenzini, was born on November 24, 1826, in a small town near Florence, Italy. After completing primary school, Lorenzini studied to become a priest at the seminary of Val d'Elsa. However, after graduating, Lorenzini began working in a bookstore.

As the movement for Italian unification spread throughout the country, Lorenzini turned to journalism. In 1848, he founded the satirical magazine Il Lampione, but it was closed in 1849. He later went on to found La Scaramuccia. In addition to his journalism, Lorenzini wrote comedies and satirical pieces. His works were signed under the pseudonym “Collodi,” the name of the town where his mother was born.

After the unification of Italy in 1861, Lorenzini worked as a theatrical censor, magazine editor, story writer and translator for children. He published books such as: “Novels on the Train”, “Giannettino”, “Eyes and Nose”, “Funny Stories”, “Interesting Notes” and the most famous of these was “The Adventures of Pinocchio”.

As soon as it was published, the wonderful adventures of the wooden boy Pinocchio in his arduous journey to become a real person were eagerly read by Italian children. After being translated into English in 1892, the names of Lorenzini and Pinocchio became famous worldwide.

Pinocchio, a wooden boy in a Disney animated film.

In 1940, “The Adventures of Pinocchio” was adapted into an animated film by Walt Disney. Not only a character in the story, in the film, Pinocchio is also considered a symbol of modern culture - one of the most reproduced characters in the treasure trove of children's literature. The image of the boy Pinocchio with a nose that automatically grows longer every time he tells a lie has become a familiar part of the childhood of millions of readers.

Several countries around the world have erected statues of the wooden character Pinocchio to promote understanding and action to protect children's rights. At 16m high, the Pinocchio statue in the town of Collodi, central Italy, is considered the tallest statue of this character in the world.

To this day, Collodi's work about the character Pinocchio remains one of the world's most beloved children's books, and is the most translated literary work in the world after the Bible, with more than 2,000 translations in more than 200 languages.

According to VNA