That reading promotes open-mindedness is a well-known fact, but the importance of bringing even the youngest children closer to literature goes far beyond this initial reflection. Especially in today's digitised world, in which the written word is in danger of being less and less attractive to the younger generation. "Caught up from a very early age in the net and in the digital world, in fact, children have fewer opportunities to approach literature as an area of exploration, as a space for fun and in-depth study, as a linguistic gymnasium, as a place to simply pass the time. And also as an element of complexity. A complexity, of course, that must be calibrated on the basis of the age and maturity of readers, so that the encounter with literature must be challenging, but not impossible, in order to avoid grotesque trivialisations or aping reductions. If approached in the right way, it is precisely the healthy complexity of the literary text and the characters that populate it that continues to have great formative potential, on many levels."
A potential, that of literature, which in 2013 gave rise to a proposal for primary schools in the Locarno region and to a challenge: to propose, year after year, a great classic or an author, to the attention of girls and boys in 4th and 5th grade, as part of a literary event designed for an adult audience, PiazzaParola. The festival, now in its 10th edition, was held last 15 December at the PalaCinema with a programme entirely dedicated to Italo Calvino, whose birth centenary falls this year.