It may sound presumptuous, as I was indeed in my primary school years, arm raised proffering, imposing that I know this too to the gray clouded (Einstein was wrong on the game of dice) firmly placating elderly lady sitting opposite the class room of chicks. The Benocci shoes again, only in a slightly more sportive fashion, but with that same dressing style. I suppose also down to the old fashioned to the ankle boots.

Those chicks, my mates and companions in the adventure of learning.

One should focus on chick, not on that K that stands for Kantian, though this wants to be an invitation to stop your pecking once and again to stare beaks wide open to the starry sky above you.

Born in the Terra dei Sapienti, the Land of the Knowledgable, the io io io of the “Ragazzi di Padre Tobia” must have concocted an appetite along with the adventures of Ciuffettino. An appetite for cheese, the greedy mouse to be, but also for reading.  Reluctant eater, not to say rebellious, when it came to the spitting of yoghurt in the face of the lady helping my mom at home. Antonia was well padded with a large apron when facing my swallow it all no complaints brother a couple of years later.

Four? Maybe five years old. I have a very distinct memory of my kindergarten years and I do not remember watching what was likely to be a rerun of the 1969 series based on the book. Watching it now, knowingly, I find so many seeds that would have led to the sprouting of characters such as the Saltapicchi or turns of phrases. Reasoning anchoring turning points. Paddling on, unhooking the narrative. Rounding the challenges of the fabula in the bubbling pot.

What are you pecking on now?

I started with R. Scarry chasing Ziggy on the pages digesting new words and looking for others. At 5 I could count in English pestering my parents and brother in the back of the car on holiday trips: how many rabbits?  

I turned into…Let me see from chick to greedy mouse? Someone would kindly say that I need to untie myself. That other white clouded lady down the line of time holding a workshop of people like she was holding a patch work in the making.

And so you are. Life is weaving you and you are weaving your life.

Are you putting a real effort in deciphering those signs on the pages? I did. Legend says that aged 4 or 5 I was heard going from stumbling on letters into reading fluently Cinderella, so often heard by my mother, sitting on the potty from behind the glass door. One needs indeed a room for oneself from an early age.

As well as a comfy yellow armchair with glow worms on which to curl up on Saturdays homework finished or almost so, first the written ones at the week end. Admittedly, not having an electronic register teachers in my days could not overload us nonstop. Once said once written down in the colourful diaries brimming with stickers and drawings.

That ciao with a long tail two eyes and I think also a smile. Or that little lift here ‘scemo chi legge’ scribbled underneath dotting the pages.

My school curriculum?

Early kindergarten “Plato’s little cave”

Kindergarten “Little growing Aristoteles” note I loved to mess up with the cubes of the A B C of formal logic

Primary school “Taletes’ habitus’ with the experiential swimming pool learning to float

Middle school “Diogenes in the fideistic barrel”

High school “Theseus ship” parental warning the Hegelian sirens

You understood very little, didn’t you? Bet you will have a laugh at the parrots in Ciuffettino, but fail to appreciate the Pirandellian undertones in the scene of the puppets. Bravi! Well done and spotted! Melampo is also in Pinocchio as well as …

You see? You are holding those burning stones of curiosity. Time will disclose the meaning to you.  Curiosity killed the cat, but not the curious chick. Well, one has to learn to distinguish mother hen beak from a weasel snort.

How would I describe my work?

Mother Goose turns into, yes also Nonna Papera, I love baking cakes, Mother Goose turns into the Greedy Mouse or better leaves him her paws in stories to dedicate herself to poetry. Read, laugh and learn.

Mother Goose also delights in delving into magic realism fiction for growing and grownup Kantian chicks as well as putting her beak into ironical takes of this or that contemporary aspect, sometimes in prose, more often in verse.

How to conclude?

Let’s point our beaks to the stars!