Two little girls discovering… their neighbors

It all begins when a pink scooter disappears from the entrance hall of the building where two five and seven year old sisters live, Marilù and Marilì. The two little ones soon become convinced that the culprit can only be one of the tenants of the large seven-story building where they live. Then the investigation takes place, not simple and for many reasons. First of all, the two sisters are quite different in character and are not so used to collaborating. However, they will have to make a virtue of necessity. Also because you have to investigate floor after floor, ring every door and above all get in touch with people who, despite living in the same building, are completely unknown to the two girls. And during their investigation Marilù and Marilì will know not only what happened to their scooter, but how wonderful it is to discover the people who are next to us and who we too often ignore.

Designed to bring children who have just started elementary school closer to reading, "A mystery along 7 floors" (Edizioni Didattica Attiva, pp. 32) is a delightful fable on the importance of looking at ourselves and those around us, overcoming fears , prejudices, closures.

Signing the book, illustrated by Maurizio Dondi, is Francesco Pastorelli, a philosopher lent to storytelling for the little ones. So we ask him what prompted him to temporarily put aside his beloved philosophy to devote himself to writing for children:

"As one of the most illustrious philosophers, Aristotle, argued, philosophy (which is a love of knowledge, not so much knowledge itself) is born of wonder, that is, of that amazement that leads us to ask why and how of the things we see . Raise your hand who, among children or grandchildren, has never been overwhelmed by the incessant and overwhelming request for 'why' that children address to adults on every aspect of life. It is a marvel, an amazement and therefore a curiosity that children naturally have within, and which they often lose as adults. Writing this book has also helped me to put on those clothes again and to try to look at some aspects of contemporary life with different eyes».

What were the sources of inspiration for the book?

«Like many others, I live in an apartment building in a big city (but I come from a small town): at a certain point, on a beautiful spring day, after having inadvertently said hello to the neighbor on the landing and unable to remember, at a distance of ten minutes, even if he had answered me, suddenly, a click clicked: the closer we are 'physically', the more difficult it is to be 'emotionally' close. It is the commonplace (but true) of the city, which 'accumulates' people making them, paradoxically, more alone than they were before. I knew very little about my neighbors, so I wondered if it wasn't worth looking for a different way, a better way. I wondered if one could look at one's neighbors with different eyes, 'recovering' them in a more emotional and human dimension. Literary invention, from this point of view, has something magical about it, and it all started from there».

What difficulties involved writing for children?

“I had to wear another pair of glasses, and this was helped by my two daughters. They always say what you don't expect, but the good news is that somewhere, within us, that way of looking still exists and can be recovered. On a stylistic level it was a real feat: writing simply, without accumulating useless details, is very difficult, and it was the greatest effort. Adults always tend to complicate things without needing to. But it's a healthy effort: you get rid of so many frills, you go straight to the heart of things and are, therefore, much more effective".

What role do the drawings play in your story?

«As in any illustrated book, the drawings play a fundamental role. The illustrator Maurizio Dondi, who is also a friend and colleague, played a decisive role: he combines artistic creativity with authorial brilliance and a sure taste in building the relationship between text and image in an imaginative and different way ... he is a few years older than me, but the Aristotelian marvel has never forgotten it. In particular, the drawings often add details to the story, enriching it, offering a few more details: the drawing, rather than decorative, is itself a story in itself, which should also be enjoyed and followed independently. Among other things, there is also a game – with a solution at the end – aimed at recognizing famous paintings 'disguised' in the drawings of the text».

Going back to the original inspiration of the book, are your neighbors as interesting to know as the ones described in the book?

«I look forward to getting to know them better… In reality, all joking aside, each of the neighbors in the book is the set of several people from the past (even distant) and from the present in my life. Writing about them by contaminating them was like making them come back alive inside me, a way of not losing them and keeping them, as every good story tries to do».