I'm Not Scared (Canons)

Six children, ages five to 12 and living in a small Italian town, play games in which the loser has to do a “forfeit,” perform some disagreeable task. On one such adventure they come upon an abandoned house and nine-year-old Michele agrees to do the forfeit even though he was not the loser in the contest. The task involves climbing through the house, which he does and comes out and lands on a mattress. Beneath it he finds a space in which there is a boy about his own age. Initially Michele thinks the boy is dead but later comes to find that he is alive but delirious. Michele doe not tell the other children about this boy, instead keeping the mystery to himself. So begins Niccolò Ammanite’s thriller, I’m Not Scared. This relatively short (245 pages) novel is a true page-turner, filled with humor, revelations and danger. The drama heightens when Michele learns of the evil committed by his community and even his family and must reconcile this evil with his own morality. The one negative I felt is that the ending is inconclusive, although perhaps there was no real satisfying way to end it. Well worth reading.

4.5*

This came highly recommended and has been sitting awhile waiting to be read. It is a slim volume, which I chose to read in the garden one hot day, imbibing the stifling heat of the sun, echoing the setting of the book. Bees buzzing, planes droning overhead and the scent of dried vegetation wafting across every so often.

This novella is hugely atmospheric, set in 1970s Italy when politics were considerably more unstable than they are today, when kidnappings were rife and poverty a given in rural areas. It is a terrifically hot Summer, when the wheat fields are crackling and the sun is unforgiving. The heat permeates every nook and cranny.

Nine year old Michele Amitrano has his younger sister in tow, and spends his days with a group of friends, headed by the indomitable bully, Skull. On one of their expeditions, they come across an old, delapidated building and Michele – exploring briefly on his own – makes a grim discovery. It is so shocking that he keeps it to himself in the first instance, although he does endeavour to share what he has seen with his father. But his father is a disciplinarian with important matters on his mind.

The 1970s was a time when children – even in Italy – were to be seen and not heard – and he understands that, for various reasons, his parents will not be open to hearing what he wants to tell them.

This is very much a book written from the child’s perspective but intended for an adult audience. This is a nine year old boy trying to make sense of the harsh world in which he finds himself, a story about the loss of innocence, surrounded by poverty, stark yet rounded. The writing (and of course translation) is beautiful, the words just sucked me in.