We have previously shared the story of Well Read Mom’s founding, and now we share the work they have done to publish in English Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio with commentaries by Franco Nembrini.

I’ve heard it said, “You don’t find a book, a book finds you.” Several years ago, while visiting friends in Italy, I asked if I could use their computer. In the family’s book-lined back office, one particular book caught my eye: Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, with notes by Franco Nembrini.

Aware of Nembrini’s work on Dante, and more interested in books than checking emails, I pulled Pinocchio off the shelf. Within moments, I was lost in wonder. Surprisingly, Nembrini’s commentary was not for children; it was for me. Somehow, this tale of a wooden puppet illuminated the journey of my life.

When my friends gave me the book as a gift, I devoured the story — and Nembrini’s accompanying wisdom — on my ten-hour plane ride home to Minnesota. Since then, this story about the adventures of a puppet has continued to be my companion.

While Italians know this beloved novel well, most Americans are only vaguely familiar with the original classic and have never read the original.

It is the privilege of Well Read Mom to bring this work — Pinocchio: A Journey to the Father, with Collodi’s tale and Franco Nembrini’s expanded commentary — to American readers for the first time.

I hope that you discover — as was the case for me — that you didn’t just find the book, the book found you.

Marcie Stokman, Crosby, MN

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Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio has fascinated readers for over 140 years. Countless volumes have been written about Pinocchio, each interpreting the story according to contemporary narrative trends and ideologies. Each retelling of the classic story presents the moral dilemmas faced by Pinocchio, especially regarding his responsibility towards his creator, Geppetto, through a different lens. These various depictions all point to a much larger question of our age: what is the relationship between figures of authority and individuals? What is the balance between liberty and license? In other words, what is the nature of freedom?

This question of free will, obedience, and authority lies at the heart of the story, and the beautiful commentaries of Franco Nembrini (building on the interpretation of Pinocchio by Cardinal Biffi before him) offer a nuanced reading of this deceptively simple tale. By contemplating the human condition as seen through Pinocchio’s story, we are prompted to ponder our own story. Human beings share a common origin: we did not make ourselves—we have been created. This is a controversial thing to say nowadays when our collective understanding of “identity” is being challenged and redefined, when we are encouraged to invent ourselves, to “create” ourselves according to our own subjective inclinations.

Collodi proposes a key to unlocking the mystery of the human person by suggesting that we should start with what is given. In this case, a piece of wood is given which is more than just a piece of wood. The tale of Pinocchio challenges us with pressing questions: Am I real? Am I a puppet? Am I free? To whom do I belong?

The drama of our freedom, then, consists in honoring the relationship between our Creator and our telos, the end and purpose of our life. The thrill of reading Pinocchio is to realize that our own existential questions are embodied in the puppet, the creature, who longs to be real. As is the case for Pinocchio, our trials and temptations unconceal the shallowness of self-indulgence and can serve to introduce us to a fuller sense of freedom, one that is ordered to the good for which we have been created.

To reduce The Adventures of Pinocchio to a didactic moral tale — “do good and avoid evil,” — is to take all the gravitas from the story and, instead, to leave behind a narrow and uncomplicated shard. Pinocchio shows us that license leads to heartache and unhappiness; finite pleasures without restraint cannot satisfy us because we are made for something greater. When we resist the temptations of momentary ease or pleasure, even legitimate pleasure, in pursuit of a higher good, we enter more fully into our calling to unity with our Creator: We become more real. And so, we are grateful, particularly at this time in history, for this new commentary by Franco Nembrini, which guides us from unsatisfying illusions of gleeful, unrestrained liberty into the arms of the Father who lovingly seeks us. Amidst the plurality of modern voices, each putting Pinocchio into a different and too-often distorting costume, Nembrini provides a fresh and provocative insight for us: that the sacrificial imprint of our Father’s love has been inscribed in every creature. The true adventure, and the one for which each of us has been made, is to discover it.

Colleen, Oconomowoc, WI