Island stories vol. 2

‘Once there was not and now there is!’ “Island stories” is a collection of fairy tales devised by the children of The Isolachenonc’era, who have approached creative writing and the pleasure of reading. The content of the stories have been collected through the production of short texts personally designed by children, for little ones, meetings and workshops were organised, designed to stimulate the imagination to invent stories, characters, places, and actions. The illustrations of the texts were made through drawings that represent the graphic expression of thoughts and ideas about the places and characters of the stories invented by children, according to the personal and original style of each one. Today, children write and draw on paper, on the web, with a pen or keyboard. For them, an endemic need is white space, to colour with words and images. The style of the children is expressed through emotions and senses that combine to produce stories that manage to capture the reader’s attention with their peculiarity. To read and increase the enjoyment towards reading from an early age is possible if the relationship between the reader and the book becomes emotionally engaging-affective, because the educational purpose of reading is not in the pure and simple decoding, but in the relationship that is created between written text and reader. What matters is not to read but how to read. And in fact through this activity that children have acquired linguistic, sociolinguistic and conversational skills, they have used their imaginations looking for stories and characters, they developed expressiveness and verbal creativity, they have created a safe space for expression and discussion, they have graphically represented their thinking and have given colour and shape to their ideas. The idea of creating an e-book with text and original designs was born from the desire on the part of all those who made this project happen, to accept the challenge and the good fortune that this work can be shared with others for the idea that modern technologies if properly used, can bring children closer to reading and creative writing by offering them the opportunity of a completely new approach.