Ciopi was a little girl who loved listen her mom reading. When she was two, she already had her favourite books. She used to give them to her mom, and to lie down next to her and listen silently. When she liked a book very much, she asked her mom to read it dozens and dozens of times. And when the mom, maybe to give a new thrill to the reading, changed some words, Ciopina used to break her silence and say: no mom, that’s not what it says. Ciopina loved books and the stories they told, but she was one of the last in her class who learnt how to read, because she had her personal reader, and when this one was busy or had a particular repulsion for a book, she asked her dad. He was the one who had to read her Harry Potter... yes, Harry Potter... because when a little girl like Ciopi loves books, you have to buy her a new one every week. And with all that reading, the stories in books become too short. Or it happens that little Ciopi needs more complex stories. Then, when she was almost seven, a little sister came and she had to learn and read by herself.
Now she is a woman. Ciopi never stopped reading. Nor has she ever forgotten the characters that live in her books. And even if she grew up, even if now she’s fond of history, philosophy, anthropology and psychology, from time to time she comes back to her mom’s house and picks up those books she loved so much as a child. Always the same.
That’s how “La biblioteca della Ciopi” (Ciopi’s library) was born. A series collecting all those books that Ciopina asked her mom to read again and again, and that made her laugh so much, turning her into a voracious reader and a smart woman.
They’re not expensive books. They’re handy books, easy to hold and to leaf through, even for small hands. Even if they’re a little dirty, who cares. They’re books with pictures. And colourful! And they’re not always edifying books. They don’t always convey instructive or moral lessons. They don’t feature exercises to improve reading. They’re just small, funny stories for all the children who want to read at night before going to bed, in the car or on the train, while they travel somewhere faraway, better if in company of their mom or dad. Books they can share with their little friends, or give them as presents. Just for the pleasure of laughing together. Books that will provide them the means to reply, for example, to their moms when they would refuse to get a dog. A real one.
Books that, with lots of laughing and some nonsense here and there, will make our children love them. And that love will last forever.