In viaggio con buoni propositi e ottimi auspici. Promesse e intenzioni da Robinson a Pinocchio

The literary representation of childhood inevitably goes through the history of the behavioral attitudes of the protagonists of novels, fairy tales and stories; and, consequently, through the ability portraits of artists who have been able, in different times and places, to delineate psychological profiles of highly effective and disarming reliability. The vast literature that finally catches the childhood (and youth ) seems to stand thanks to an impalpable as resistant trait d'union based on some constants: the fragility of intentions and promises, the lability of seemingly unassailable positions, the discovery of happy-girl reality of the essence , unpredictable and magical. The adventurous European narrative - with characters like Robinson - comes with significant delay, a response that substantiates the topos of empty promise the great narrative machine having as protagonists, children, young people and puppets, and reaches up to Collodi, able to draw an identikit of bold balance, in constant oscillation between righteousness and deviation, obedience and transgression. The reversal behavior caused, from time to time, by temptations, mistakes, by the accidents surrounding, or only from the wonderful inconsistency girl, becomes the leitmotif that runs through the centuries and nations, arousing interest and sympathy, revealing the insightful overview that some great writers have been able to have about the childhood universe.