GIANNI RODARI’S BIRTHHOUSE
In this House, on lake Orta , Gianni Rodari was born on 23 rd October 1920, from Giuseppe Rodari , bakerman and owner of a bakery in Mazzini street, main street of Omegna, married to his second wife Maddalena Ariocchi, shop assistant in his father’s shop.
Today, on the wall of his birthhouse to the street , there’s a plaque reminding him.
In Omegna he attended the primary school, but after his father’s death (1929), he moved to Gavirate, province of Varese, his mother’s birthplace, but he will always be tied to Omegna and Lake Orta, inspiration source thanks to that wonderful and fantastic geography, often setting of his stories and characters.
Gianni Rodari was a school teacher, a journalist, an educationist, but mainly a childhood writer.
First italian author to win the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Prize in 1970, he was one of the main interpreter if the “fantasy” theme, as well as, thans to the Grammar of fantasy of 1973, his main work, one of the major theorists in the art of inventing stories:
“ all the uses of word to everyone” it sounds like a good motto, with a nice democratic sound. Not to be all artists but so that no one is a slave.