Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto

by Gianni Rodari, Antony Shugaar (Translator), Roman Muradov (Illustrator)

Overview

From Gianni Rodari, the father of modern Italian children’s literature, comes a pithy, humorous tale about life and death, health and wealth . . . and bandits and balloons! A refreshed translation from Batchelder Award–winner Antony Shugaar, illustrated with all-new art from Roman Muradov

“Gianni Rodari gave free rein to his imagination, with inspired panache and gleeful lightness. At the same time, he had a precise and meticulous love for detail, for rich and exact language, and so all of his inventions are set in a very concrete world with real form and action.” —Italo Calvino

Baron Lamberto is very old, very rich, and very sick. He lives in a villa on a private island in the middle of Lake Orta, tended to by his trusty butler, Anselmo, who keeps track of the baron’s 24 maladies, 24 banks, and endless eccentricities. After a mysterious trip to Egypt, the baron hires six people to take up residence in the attic of his villa. Their only task? To repeat his name, “Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto,” throughout the day. Why? It’s anyone’s guess, but—wonder of wonders—Baron Lamberto does appear to be getting better and better, little by little, day by day. But trouble looms when Lamberto’s nefarious nephew Ottavio enters the scene, scheming up a way to get his hands on the baron’s fortune. And things go from bad to worse when a band of 24 bandits (all named Lamberto, too, by the way) lays siege to the baron’s villa and attempt to hold him for ransom.

In typical Rodarian fashion, Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto is a thoroughly enjoyable, deeply thought-provoking read. While it playfully skewers the absurdities of the rich, the bureaucracy, the media, and more, it also encourages readers to liberate their imaginations, to expect the unexpected, and to embrace the kind of possibilities that normally only happen in fairy tales.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592704156
Publisher:	Enchanted Lion
Publication date:	01/14/2025
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

The Italian Author Gianni Rodari wrote many beloved children's books and was awarded the prestigious Andersen Prize. But he was also an educator of paramount importance in Italy and an activist who understood the liberating power of the imagination. He is one of the twentieth century’s greatest authors for children, and Italy's greatest. Influenced by French surrealism and linguistics, Rodari stressed the importance of poetic language, metaphor, made-up language, and play. At a time when schooling was all about factual knowledge, Rodari wrote The Grammar of Fantasy, a radically imaginative book about storytelling and play. He was a forerunner of writing techniques such as the "fantastic binomial" and the utopian, world engendering "what if...." The relevance of Rodari’s works today lies in his poetics of imagination, his humanist yet challenging approach to reality, and his themes, such as war and peace, immigration, injustice, inequality, and liberty. Forty years after his death, Rodari’s writing is as powerful and innovative as ever. He died in Rome in 1980.

Editorial Reviews

If Roald Dahl had rewritten The Picture of Dorian Gray to include a gang of 24 bandits and a giant balloon, the result might have been Rodari's wonderfully improbable novel that, for all its humor, is loosely based upon the 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italian politician Aldo Moro. "The man whose name is spoken remains alive," an Egyptian fakir tells an elderly millionaire named Lamberto, who thereupon pays a squad of employees to take shifts repeating his name 24 hours a day. Sure enough, the ostentatious Lamberto grows gradually younger, becoming "straight, tall, blond, and athletic." Lamberto's valet, Anselmo, supervises the enterprise, and his scheming nephew, Ottavio, stumbles upon it. Consumed with his renewed health and powers of physical regeneration, Lamberto is happily oblivious both to his nephew's nefarious actions and to the fate of the island within the hands of the bandits (all named Lamberto, too). Despite the absence of children in the story, advanced readers who like to see adults acting in ludicrous ways should enjoy Rodari's effervescent storytelling, which avoids the grim ending that met Moro. Shugaar finds deft translations for all the idioms, while Maggioni's antic ink drawings align with the absurdly hyperbolic tone. All ages. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

Gianni Rodari gave free rein to his imagination, with inspired panache and gleeful lightness. At the same time, he had a precise and meticulous love for detail, for rich and exact language, and so all of his inventions are set in a very concrete world with real form and action.”
—Italo Calvino

"Making a comedy out of a terrorist kidnapping is tricky stuff, but this book for both children and adults is a daring highwire act that works. In the shocking tradition of Roald Dahl, this hilarious Italian fairytale is peppered with scuba diving suits, submachine guns and custom sports cars. At times antic with goofy buffoonery, at times grisly with uncomfortable realism—Rodari has a sense of comedy that smacks of the Marx Brothers, but with a darker, post 9/11 edge more in keeping with the grimmer satires of South Park." —Shelf Awareness

 "If Roald Dahl had rewritten The Picture of Dorian Gray to include a gang of 24 bandits and a giant balloon, the result might have been Rodari's wonderfully improbable novel..." —Publishers Weekly

"Lamberto belongs to that family of comic writing that glories in the full spectrum of the absurd." —LA Review of Books

"If you are looking for a book that transports you, that contains details you will return to for years to come, and that you may, someday, give to your children, it’s this one." —The Lit Pub

"Stuffed with amusing characters and off-the-wall events, Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto evokes a texturally rich setting that skillfully weaves together satire and fantasy. You’d be hard-pressed not to enjoy this young adult fairy tale from Italy." —Fiction Advocate

"Making a comedy out of a terrorist kidnapping is tricky stuff, but this book for both children and adults is a daring high-wire act that works." —Nick DiMartino, Shelf Awareness

"It may seem like grisly stuff for a children’s book, but Rodari mixes magic with terrorists and tabloids and manages to come out with something altogether wonderful, and sure to please young and old alike." —Flavorwire's 10 New Must-Reads for December

"Give yourself up to this insightful tour guide, and you might just find yourself confronting the absurdities of your own life." —New York Journal of Books

"Rodari's story is, to say the least, unpredictable..." —The Complete Review

"Absurdities abound but never overwhelm, this is satire of the highest order." —Largehearted Boy

"Hilarity ensues in a story that retains the wonder and delight of Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth or Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince." —Barnes and Noble (Long List pick)

From the Publisher