New books for the new school. The beginnings of the “Letture per la scuola media” series

Abstract

The article examines the editorial process of “Letture per la scuola media”, a book series edited by Daniele Ponchiroli and published by Einaudi from 1965. This series was addressed to students and teachers of the unified middle school established by the reform of 1962. The texts included in “Letture per la scuola media” were written by contemporary Italian authors – such as Italo Calvino, Carlo Cassola, Primo Levi and Mario Rigoni Stern – and were presented without the traditional didactic paratext. This article analyses the designs and the content of the first four books published and the correspondence between editors and authors to show the peculiarity of this editorial operation and its connections with the purposes of the educational reforms and the cultural environment of the Sixties.