Title Pinocchio Series --- Author Carlo Lorenzini Illustrated By Disney Publisher Random House - 1973 First Printing Random House - 1973 Category Children Warnings None Main Characters Pinocchio, Geppetto, the Blue Fairy, Talking Cricket Main Elements Anthropomorphic, Fairies

A simplified version of the classic tale of a talking wooden puppet whose nose grew long whenever he told a lie.

I grew up with the Disney version of the puppet who wished to be a real boy. So I decided to look up the original story on Project Gutenberg. Disney got it mostly right, all the main events were there though the details were different. For example Jiminy Cricket was just the Talking Cricket and doesn't have nearly as much "screen time" in the original story by Carlo Lorenzini, who used the name C. Collodi when he published the story. It was much longer than I expected it to be too.

Now this book I have is an abridge version of the movie, which is an abridged version of the original tale. But that's alright, otherwise it would have been way to long to read to your kids before they go to bed. But once they are a little older, I'd suggest pointing them towards the original. Geppetto is really a grumpy old man, Pinocchio wasn't just naive and easily tricked, he was truly a naughty boy who was lazy and enjoyed mischief. In truth I never did much like Pinocchio, always getting into trouble, but in the original he was truly an unpleasant character! It is interesting to contrast the two tellings of this story.