The Patua Pinocchio

by Carlo Collodi, Swarna Chitrakar (Illustrator), Carol Della Chiesa (Translator)

Overview

The Patua Pinocchio is a fresh and exciting visual interpretation of the well-known story of the puppet who longs to become a boy. Swarna Chitrakar, Patua scroll painter from West Bengal, visualizes the tale in her own idiom–drawing on popular Indian iconography, which depicts children as nothing less than divine. In the process, she effortlessly transforms this children's classic into a universal tale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789383145126
Publisher:	Tara Books
Publication date:	05/12/2015
Pages:	188
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

Carlo Lorenzini, better known by the pen name Carlo Collodi was an Italian children's writer known for the world-renowned fairy tale novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio. He lives in Florence, Italy. Swarna Chitrakar is an acclaimed patua scroll artist from Eastern India. Her work has been exhibited in galleries of folk art worldwide. Swarna has won several awards and is considered one of the most innovative artists in her tradition. She lives in Eastern India. Carol D. Chiesa lives in Florence.

Editorial Reviews

03/16/2015
Bengali scroll painter Chitrakar reimagines The Adventures of Pinocchio using traditional Indian folk art iconography. Thickly painted figures in bright bold colors appear in panels throughout the story; Geppetto is pictured as a serene, mustachioed figure with long, inky hair and mustard-colored skin, while Pinocchio, whose nose resembles a small elephant trunk, is the color of cinnamon and wears a sarong and ornate jewelry. Chitrakar embraces the story’s many fantastical elements in her stylized work. For example, she depicts the Talking Cricket, who returns as a ghost after Pinocchio kills it with a hammer, as a golden dragonlike creature with fishlike scales and teeth. A visually striking cultural remix of a classic piece of children’s literature. Ages 12–up. (May)

Publishers Weekly

The ‘on-going dialogue’ between Swarna Chitrakar and the Tara team is what finally makes this book an exciting experiment. Not only was the story adapted to suit the style of painting, but Tanuja Ramani, the designer has highlighted the strong lines of the painting by placing these on a white background. In this way the strong colours stand out more prominently giving a certain force and animation to the illustration. — The Book Review India

At the onset, one may wonder how a traditional Indian painting style could suit an Italian fairy tale. But put your doubts aside as The Patua Pinocchio breaks all the stereotypes and emerges as a complete package… While the story was originally Italian and the illustrations westernised, The Patua Pinocchio only retells through the multifaceted storytelling cum painting medium of Patua. — All About Book Publishing

The storyline remains similar to the old classic,but the visuals add a different dimension to the story. Bright colours, bold strokes, super expressions and lovely composition – The story of Pinocchio gets a new form and shape. - Indian Moms Connect

An engaging telling in just about 180 pages, the story pops out and grabs the reader via starkly stylized original illustrations. — Saffron Tree

The differing elements come together really well to produce a coherent and highly enjoyable version which stands out from the norm. A lovely gift book and one to cherish, beautifully produced in hardback with high quality paper which shows the illustrations to full advantage. — Parents In Touch U.K.

From the Publisher

06/01/2015
Gr 6–8—More Struwwelpeter than Disney darling, this Pinocchio will surprise and perhaps delight students. The text describes a thoughtless bad boy who is repeatedly, and violently, punished for his misdeeds. Adapted from Della Chisa's translation from the original story, some elements are familiar, as when our hapless hero is led astray by a fox and a cat. Others are slightly horrifying, for example, when Pinocchio tries to kill the moralizing Talking Cricket by throwing a hammer at its head. Readers will understand the temptation to join Lamp-wick in the Land of Toys; yet this is where Pinocchio learns that "all lazy boys who come to hate books and schools and teachers and spend all their days with toys and games must sooner or later turn into donkeys." An endnote discusses the Bengali art form and the Patua painting style that Chitrakar employs, which traditionally feature stylized images from Hindu folklore. Pinocchio himself is reminiscent of the Hindu god Krishna, a trickster figure. The boldly outlined paintings decorate the text rather than directly illustrating it. And of course, in the belly of the beast is where Pinocchio finds his father at last. This interpretation will inspire educators to seek out other versions, especially the 1881 original, to compare and contrast the visual interpretations of the text. VERDICT A unique addition to folktale collections for artistic exploration and cross-cultural comparison.—Toby Rajput, National Louis University, Skokie, IL

School Library Journal

2015-02-03
Illustrations done in a style indigenous to West Bengal test the universality of Collodi's classic puppet-to-boy tale. In the text, which is Della Chiesa's 1925 translation abridged to about half its length, proper names—Mastro Antonio, Geppetto, Pulcinella—preserve the original's Italian flavor. Chitrakar's almond-eyed, dark- or golden-skinned figures definitely push that envelope. Chocolate-hued Pinocchio, clad only in a tightly wrapped loincloth and sporting a white pectoral to go with similarly lacy armlets and anklets, bears a heavy-lidded, enigmatically smiling expression throughout. This last is in keeping, as explained in the afterword, with the artist's conception of him as a "lovable yet godly trickster figure," like Krishna. Other humans are clad in loose traditional Bengali dress and drawn, like the animal characters, in heavy-lined, stylized ways that don't always agree with the text. The azure-haired maiden, for instance, "face white as wax," is honey-colored in the accompanying portrait. The depicted action, too, is so stylized that few if any readers would be able to connect pictures to story without prompts from the captions. A thought-provoking if not particularly successful experiment. (afterword) (Fantasy. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews