Diversi ed essenziali. Immagini e orizzonti d’infanzia da Saint-Exupéry a Mackesy

The literary images of animals alternate in the history of narration and, in particular, of children’s literature, restoring iridescent reflections, now gloomy and bright. Time, in fact, changes even the most rooted prejudices, transforming them into an ‘ontological declaration’ of diversity that brings richness, dialogue and discussion. The fox, emblem of cunning used to take advantage of others, well delineated from the ancient fables to the pages of the Collodian masterpiece, becomes a significant character, outlined by the delicate pen of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The essential passage from anthropomorphized animal to humanized animal opens to the possibility that everyone can be an example, a gift for the other: it is the fox, in fact, that reveals to the little prince the deepest sense of relationship, a domestication that creates strong and lasting bonds over time and assumes the warm colors of wheat. This literary and educational aspect is then highlighted in another work of great elegance and refinement: the graphic novel The laddie, the mowdie, the tod and the cuddie by Charles Mackesy. The work proposes a microcosm of differences and othernesses: the four characters, so different, are united by the kindness of the heart that makes them able to take care of each other. ‘Re - seeing oneself’, in each and every one, restores the value of things in the time of a journey, a metaphor of formation in progress. Finally, the primordial relationship between the animal world and the human world reveals itself as a harbinger of essential values, bonds and emotions.