23rd February Pinocchio Day

Pinocchio Day is celebrated on February 23rd every year. The day marks the anniversary of the release of the Disney film, Pinocchio in 1940. For most of us, Pinocchio is a character from a cartoon or movie who is  a wooden puppet whose pointy nose grows every time he tells a lie. But the original  story written as a novel The Adventures of Pinocchio in Italian by Carlo Lorenzini (pen name Carlo Collodi)  became the first internationally known work of Italian children’s literature. 

The written story is not primarily about lying. Yes, Pinocchio tells lies, but that's just part of his general misbehaviour; he's selfish and unreliable. He's a scamp, a kid who, as we might say today, makes a lot of poor choices. The moment Geppetto carves him out of the miraculous block of wood, Pinocchio runs away and refuses to go home. His antics lead to poor Geppetto’s arrest. 

Look in the school library for some picture book versions of the Pinocchio story. These are in English, but if you have Italian speaking students the story exists in Italian in picture book format.

And if you don't have many versions and like me you do have a very young audience, the display can be 'stretched' by adding books that are cautionary tales about fibbing and not telling the truth.

These are good choices:

• Pig the Fibber by Aaron Blabey

• Kevin  by Rob Biddulph

• A Bike Like Sergio's  by Maribeth Boelts

• The Whopper  by Rebecca Ashdown 

• The Truth According to  Arthur  by David Tazzyman and Tim Hopgood

• Collette's Lost Pet  by Isabelle Arsenault

• The Boy Who Cried Wolf by B.G. Hennessy

• Finn's Little Fibs by Tom Percival