2023 Winner

We are delighted to announce the winner of the fifth edition of the Carla Poesio Prize for the best Children’s Literature dissertation in Italian.

13 final dissertations were submitted from Universities around Italy. The Jury selected the three finalists listed below in alphabetical order:

• Foglieri Caterina, Tra voli e cadute. Gli atterraggi di fortuna nella letteratura per l’infanzia (Flying and Falling. Lucky Landings in Children’s Literature) - Bologna – Science of Primary Education
• Grandesso Giulia, Storie versi. Letteratura per l'infanzia ed ecocriticismo: un'esperienza di ricerca osservativa con i bambini di 5 anni (Stories in Verse. Children’s Literature and Eco-criticism: observational research with 5-year-olds) - Padua – Science of Primary Education
• Sala Alessandra, Smarrirsi tra rami e radici: leggere la letteratura per l’infanzia a scuola (Exploring Branches and Roots: reading children’s literature in school) - Turin - Science of Primary Education        

The winner is Caterina Foglieri with Tra voli e cadute. Gli atterraggi di fortuna nella letteratura per l’infanzia (Bologna)

The Jury’s comment:

“The dissertation is an original take on flying and falling, a subject that has fascinated many disciplines, from myth and the pictorial arts through to literature and physics. After retracing the steps of two great authors with experience of the desert, A. de Saint Exupèry and R. Dahl, the paper looks at novels, fairy tales and picturebooks, taking the reader on a fascinating journey into the deep symbolism connected with flying and falling, metaphors par excellence of the experience of growing up. Falling and grazing a knee only to get up again is just one of the many impactful images reminding children that taking a fall can be an opportunity, opening up new paths to explore.”

Thanks to the support of BolognaFiere, Caterina Foglieri’s dissertation was published by Edizioni ETS in 2024.