When I was a kid my uncle worked as a sales rep for a publisher. A lot of his titles were children’s reference books, and my family often got free sample copies. A lot of the books were translated from other languages, and I’ve never seen some of them anywhere else apart. For example the Czech Magic Stories from Around the World collection that I previously scanned, illustrated by the same artists who used to do the surrealist film posters for Western films. This book was originally Italian, edited by children’s author Pinin Carpi. The contents of the book are a strange mix, with an story about two children travelling back in time to the Stone Age, anthropology and natural history information sections, myths and legends from around the world, and instructions for craft projects. It’s part of a series called A Way of Seeing, with other volumes themed around art history, the home and water, but I can’t find any images of the water or home ones online. You can get them second hand quite cheaply though, so maybe I’ll just order them blind one day. The art volume has been scanned into the Internet Archive library. The Italian editions are called Il Mondo dei Bambini, are thinner books, and seem to have extra volume about space and fantasy that either aren’t available in English or had the content spread differently.
This story is interspersed throughout the book. The kids make an improvised time machine out of junk, and visit the Stone Age with their dog, where they make a fire, help hunt a wooly rhino and make some cave paintings.
There’s also this visit to a farm. The house in the background of one of the photos on another page looks like the UK rather than Italy, so I guess they added this section for the English edition.
There’s instructions for making your own Stone Age outfit and flute.
Primary school children in Milan making huge dragons and dinosaurs. I was definitely jealous. I sadly didn’t have access to a whole school hall to build such a thing in.
I always wondered if these drawings were actually by Italian kids and they just made up some new names, or if they just used local kid’s drawings for the UK edition. Rupert has some serious felt tip skills.
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