Bambini bambine e sapori – Famiglie a colori

Comment:

This is a picture book with two reading sides: on the one hand, twelve types of boys and girls are associated with flavours (the candy girl, the lemon boy, etc.), and they parade declaiming delicate nursery rhymes, up to the thirteenth one in which they use the plural form; on the other hand, there are twelve families, and each of them is associated with a different colour. In the end all these families merge into the thirteenth rhyme of rainbow families, which includes all families. The message of the book is that there is not just one ideal type of child: the girls are not always associated with sweet flavours, and some nursery rhymes also describe savage girls (and if they are not, then they are invited to “get a little muddy” to have more fun), as well as tidy and quiet boys. Also, there is not just one type of family, but different types of families: the focus is not on the family composition (how many parents, of which sex) but on the love they bring together. It is not so easy to live in some of them: in grey families, for example, the is not much love… A book that speaks gently and without hypocrisy about the diversities among individuals and of family situations, some of which are quite difficult.