MAC BARNETT's first book for adults: an exciting essay about the role of children's literature – an original work written for Terre di mezzo. Every great author and every great reader should know this. But what is a children's book? In this special essay, Mac Barnett seriously and humorously tells and defends the potential of children's literature, breaking down one of the greatest literary taboos in history. "If you don't think children's books are real books, on some level, you don't think children are real people", and that they cannot access real art. And yet, it's the perfect opposite: "An average child is a much better reader of literary fiction, much better than the average adult." After twenty years as a writer and more than fifty books published, in his first book for "grown-ups" THE SECRET DOOR (La porta segreta), Mac Barnett tells why children's literature is literature in its own right and how deeply the connection between children's authors and their readers works.