Pinocchio

Pinocchio is one of the most beloved and recognizable of all children stories characters. The story of Pinocchio, written by Carol Collodi and originally published in 1881, has been published, republished, retold, and adapted countless times over the last 130 years. However, most people today are probably primarily familiar with the adaptation (and the depiction) of Pinocchio from Disney's movie. It is nonetheless always instructive and worthwhile to go to the original story because, in my opinion, most attempts to "improve" any given story inevitably end up subtracting rather than adding to its value.

This is an inexpensive, short and very readable edition of the Pinocchio story. It is an excellent opportunity for anyone to get reacquainted with this talking marionette, and an even better chance for all those who have never read or seen the story in the first place. The original story is much more colorful, but also darker, than the more recent adaptations. Pinocchio, Geppetto and other characters often get into physical confrontations. For the most part these incidents are amusing, but they oftentimes quite literary result in a loss of life or limb. Reading the original story also brings forth the fact that "Adventures of Pinocchio" was very consciously written as a morality tale. Its aim is to teach children (and especially boys) some of the basic character-building lessons: it's important to obey your parents or other authority figures, it's important to study and work hard, chasing after easy life and cheap thrills inevitably ends in a disaster. The forcefulness of such admonitions may seem a bit quaint today, but I for one think that they have a place even in the modern world.