Umberto Eco & Eugenio Carmi III

The third and final children's literature collaboration between Umberto Eco and Eugenio Carmi was 'The Gnomes of Gnu' about the destructive nature of colonisation and environmental destruction.

These three books are not the easy, go lucky books which are now the bread and butter of children's publishing houses. They are by no means; the cute, with no or unbelievably low content, fluff that passes for picture books in most of our societies. These are intellectually, visually complex, thought provoking creations, made to promote discussion and to challenge us and the world that children and parents find themselves in.
In studying the genre of Children's literature and observing the transitions occurring with new technologies and the sanitising effects of market driven publishing, you watch the unique, diverse, inspirational and provocative content and creation of books become a homogeneous, dirge of 'commercial culture', where books not colluding with the expectations of the market are not to be seen. In this way freedom of speech, creativity and progress are hampered and the diversity and interest of books becomes more and more limited.

Umberto Eco and Eugenio Carmi, these fantastic Italian scholars, died within just three days of each other in February 2016.