As adult readers, educators, or parents, we are well aware that middle-grade literature has the challenging task of helping young readers grow as they transition from childhood to adolescence in search of new experiences. Well, if you are about 12 years old and you are not sure that books have anything left to offer you, may I suggest you try reading Nelle case dei morti non ci sono scale before you give it all up? In it, you might find the creepy adventure you have been craving to stay awake when you should be sleeping… Or a friend who seems to understand the deepest, darkest secrets you never spoken aloud.
Nelle case dei morti
tutti i suoni son distorti
neanche l’eco sa tornare
nelle case dei morti non ci sono scale.
The story follows the young protagonist Dodo as she goes back to her grandmother’s home in Puglia, two years after the devastating fire that destroyed half the villa. The family reunites to tackle renovations and find a new placement for the elderly woman, but Dodo doesn’t want to help because the last time she tried, no one believed her. So, when strange events and disappearances begin to plague the villa and the adults are too caught up in their arguments to notice, it is up to the kids – Dodo, her brother Giulio, and her cousins Cesare, Camillo, and Cecilia – to face the threat. Once and for all.
Non guardarmi se hai paura di me.
Cos’è che ti fa tanta paura?
The kids sneak into the burned-out part of the house, a nightmarish place where rooms become prisons and family members disappear, lose their faces, or turn into evil monsters. Dodo, the youngest of the group, thinks that the house wants to hurt them: she hears voices speaking to her, threatening to keep her trapped unless she tells the truth. Specifically, she needs to tell “her” who she is… Who is she? Who should she tell?
Left alone after a series of trials and accidents, Dodo faces her most terrifying encounter: the one with her grandmother. The woman, who has dementia, is almost unrecognizable to her due to the illness.
On the day that the house caught fire, Dodo witnessed aa terrible scene that made her stop trusting her grandmother and was called a liar by the family. Since then, secrets, distance, and the lack of reconciliation have built up in her mind and heart, transforming her once beautiful relationship with the woman into a horrific hallucination. How can the damage be repaired? How can one communicate with someone whose mind is elsewhere?
Le case somigliano sempre a chi ci abita dentro.
A chi somiglia ora?
A lei o a me?
Just as in real life, Dodo’s relationship with her grandmother’s house reflects the emotions that filled the place during her time there; and those final, dark moments left their mark: fear, helplessness, and sadness condense into a parallel plane of existence where no one in the family can communicate, collaborate, or care for one another anymore. Parents are too busy dealing with practical problems to pay attention to their own emotional needs or those of their children, and grandparents are long gone, either physically, or mentally. And so, as is often the case, children are the ones bringing things back into focus, showing adults what really matters. Love, care, patience and the safekeeping of happy memories. And when Dodo finds the courage to be vulnerable and tell her grandmother the truth, she – and the reader with her – finally let go of all the painful emotions.
In conclusion, Nelle case dei morti non ci sono scale is a truly spine-tingling read that lends itself to the various levels of interpretation that open up to young people at this stage of their lives. The author, Lucia Perrucci, has had the courage to tackle a difficult subject – one so sensitive that it is considered taboo in many families – allowing young readers to once again find in books the answers to the most difficult questions they dare not voice in their social circles. Chapeau!
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Title: Nelle case dei morti non ci sono scale
Author: Lucia Perrucci
ISBN code: 9788804792017
Publisher: Mondadori
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What you will find in this book:
Uncomfortable truths
Grandparents-grandchildren relationships
Fear of change
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