Mara Cerri’s illustrations are weird and wonderful in this peculiar tale of loss and rediscovery Mara CerriThe Italian novelist Elena Ferrante’s first children’s book, translated beautifully and uncompromisingly by Ann Goldstein, is a dark tale with a complex girl-doll heroine and a malevolent male baddie for brave little readers. It’s narrated in the first person by Celina, the favourite talking doll of Mati, a five-year-old girl — referencing the doll belonging to Elena that her “brilliant friend” Lila drops through a grate at the start of the Neapolitan Quartet. Here Celina is on a beach. She has been upstaged in her “mother” Mati’s affections by Minù the cat, a present from her father. In the heat…

Source: The Times October 28, 2016 23:05 UTC