Rewriting for Children: Theme and Discourse Limits and Challenges. Save the Story Collection. A Case Study

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the specific nature of rewriting classic texts of the world literature for children in terms of the procedures and limits of this practice, i.e., the fidelity to the source text and the connection to the psycho-intellectual characteristics of the implied reader. The concepts of domestication and foreignisation, as well as Genette’s terminology of hypertextuality, are used to analyse the texts of the Save the Story collection, conceived by Alessandro Baricco in cooperation with Scuola Holden in Turin and published in Romanian by Curtea Veche Publishing. The case study on this collection, which brings together works belonging to the world heritage, from Gilgamesh to Crime and Punishment, proves that the included texts are more than mere adaptations of canonical works, which are generally abridgements. Instead, they have their own diegetic universe and narrative discourse that transforms pre-existent text worlds without altering their identity elements. The collection’s success lies in re-asserting the cultural and educational role of the canon for children, by removing the taboos of the traditional representation of juvenile imagery while preserving the magic of the act of telling a story.