The Art of Visual Notetaking An interactive guide to visual communication and sketchnoting by Emily Mills

The Art of Visual Notetaking An

interactive guide to visual communication and sketchnoting by Emily Mills is a fascinating book published by Quarto.

This book will start illustrating first of all what it is a visual note, and the various tools and intruments, one of the most powerful one a journal, that you can use, for leaving a legacy, a passage on this Earth, of vice-versa, thinking digitally and with a touch of more modernity and leaving alone sadness, to communicate something important to a large or restricted number of people.

You musn't be excellent in drawing or paintings, you must present yourself, with the message that you want to spread.

Visual noting are great for business, convention, for yourself, with plenty of instructions for being a successful, satisfied visual notetaker!

Highly recommended.

I thank NetGalley and Quarto for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Mrs. Poe A Novel by Lynn Cullen

I was captured by the sophisticated, beautiful, old-fashioned, rich cover of Mrs. Poe A Novel

by Lynn Cullen. That lady was fixating me as if she would inviting me to read her story.

I was intrigued.

Who was Mrs. Poe? And why the author picked up this title when substantially the one told in this book was an affair?

Edgar Allan Poe was a singular man with a devastating childhood in grade to affect also the rest of his existence; maybe because he wrote horror tales in grade to keep awaken people during the night, maybe because he had an introvert, mysterious character, people felt him as a "distant" soul although, charismatic.

Some nasty literary critics tried their best for destryingd him adding that he lived with a lot of addictions, the first one alcohol. It was true that to Poe drinking was a great temptation.

The story starts after the publication of The Raven, the consacration of this writer in the Olymp of literature and poetry. Poe is remembered because of horror tales, but his writings spaced in many existential sectors; he was a writer but also a reporter, a journalist, someone curious of the most diversified aspect of the existence.

Sure he was morbid and weird. When he understood that maybe he would have lost his favorite cousin Virginia he did all his best for marrying her and this girl was still 13 years old. It is still uncertain if they had any kind of physical contact, but Poe, 'till the end of the unlucky existence of this girl, died for tubercolosis, consumption, will assist her with great devotion, admitting at some point in this book that it was completely absurb to marrying a cousin. He understood that he was an uncommon person, and someone with some internal, serious, conflictual problems.

The story starts, facts are reals and documented,  in the winter of 1845 with a worried Frances Osgood, a writer and poet who married a man, a painter, Samuel, who didn't love her and quickly abandoned her and the two children they had had for another girl.  She must returns to write and earning money. Her writings are not appreciated a lot because what now editors want are writings like the ones of Mr.Poe.

Mrs. Osgood had read The Raven as everyone else; it was what editors wanted for people. What readers had to appreciate. Some horror, some mysterious stories.She tried with a fallen angels's story but it wasn't demoniac enough. Angels are angels also when they fall for a reason or another on this Earth.

In the literary circle where Frances Osgood loved to spend time,  populated by the most important writers, poets of the moment and owned by Miss Lynch, one day the guest-honor was Mr.Poe accompany by his child-wife, mrs Virginia Poe.

The introvert character of the man, this kind of fear and attraction that felt immediately Frances Osgood became soon an obsession.

Edgar, or Eddie as Mrs. Poe called his husband, invited mrs.Osgood to their house for spending some time with his wife. It would have been good to her to talk to someone.

But, you know...

Slowly the two, Mr.Poe and Frances became friends, and not too late as tells superbly Cullen, lovers.

Lynn Cullen wrote: "...When I looked back, he grasped me to him. He gazed down upon me as if to devour me, then with a groan, seized me to his lips."

The story becomes pretty known; or better it is whispered and Frances Osgood tries all her best for not manifesting publicly her feelings for mr.Poe with which she shares also her poems.

A story like this one can't never have a happy end and there will be also a temptative of murder...

Frances Osgood will wait a baby by Edgar Allan Poe. This baby later will be recognized as the legitimate child of Samuel, her painter husband, in the while back home.

The end will see Poe and the wife in a distant and remote place without wood for keeping warm the house and friends trying to be helpful.

Mrs. Poe, Virginia, died on 1847 and it will be this one the moment of biggest creativity for the poet, journalist and writer; always that year the baby Poe had had from Frances died at 16 months.  

On 1849 died Edgar Allan Poe and on 1850 the lover, Frances Osgood. The impressive departures continues with the ones of the rest of the children of Frances; May Vincent and Ellen died of tubercolosis on 1851, the year after that their mother passed away.

Their dad, Samuel, good news, became old!

This one is the first book I read written by Lynn Cullen. She is splendid and researched. Personally I would have preferred for keeping more precious and devastating the story of Frances and Edgar, less dialogues; but maybe this choices has been the best one, because after all the thematic is very heavy, and characters, situations lived, not the simplest ones for that age.

Plus, let's add this, Edgar Allan Poe wasn't not the sunniest character of this world.

I warmly suggest to everyone this book. The two Mrs. Poes want to let you know their stories.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Un Piccolo Negozio di Fiori a Parigi by Maxim Huerta

What a wonderful book Un Piccolo

Negozio di Fiori a Parigi by Maxim Huerta. If you search for magic, if you search for escapism, but if, at the same time, you want to think at the meaning of life, choices, and destinies, existences, death, changes, this reading is absolutely for you.

When I picked up this book I was searching for a magical book, a book in grade to transport me in another dimension. 

I was searching for a book in grade to let me dream like Chocolat by Joanne Harris, or The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Divakaruni. I felt that this time I would have been satisfied by my choice.

I can tell you I discovered not just that but also a book of great intensity, love, respect for generations, places, cultures, people.

L'Etoile Manquante is the flower shop located in Saint Germain, Paris,  born by the necessity of Dominique Brulé of keeping alive his big love, Julie. He does it thanks to his beautiful and adored flowers. It's a romantic name the one picked up by Dominique Brulé for his flower shop, thinking better. It reminds to the past, to a star disappeared.

Julie died when they were too young for a devastation like. Dominique understands that his life is becoming senseless.

Without her, days, months, years, nothing has anymore the old meaning. What to do of his own life? From Bourgogne, to Paris, now, the existence, love, seasons don't smell of the same fragrance than before.

One day he met along his way an old lady. She was 90 years and she had lost her beloved husband many years ago because of a car incident, while he was returning home after that he had bought some magazines; after that she would have looked in a strange way at all that people who bought newsmagazines. His husband had a store.

She offered to Dominique of restoring and opening again the old shop of her husband. He would have been happy, she added, remembering him of being happy! 

Dominique started to crying violently. Violently as he hadn't never done before.

A shop of flowers sounded the most appropriate one.

He didn't know that Julie loved peonies; he discovered it the day of her funeral.

After all he still didn't know a lot about her: but he knew the secrets of flowers and flowers were his destiny, from the moment in which one day he discovered a precious book of a beloved relative.

He open Les Fleurs Animées and flowers started to dance magically close to him, becoming alive, smiling, laughing, in a dance that would have meant to him a special magical connection with that fairy and enchanted world.

Dominique knows that a real gentleman is respectful of life and death: there will be respect for the dead people that must be continued to be remembered, but also for the living ones. Forgotten artists, ladies in search, still, of being appreciated and loved by admirers. A small gesture changes the existance of a lady.

He knows the hidden secret meaning of every flower, and he knows which flower will be more beloved for his customers, because in that moment they need that flower and not another one; for staying well, for being encouraged, appreciated, trusted, wanted, loved.

Dominique is pretty old although his soul is young and vital and his memories anchored at that old and lost love. His house is beautiful because impregnated of memories; it smells of books, burned candles, old furniture and photographs; precious memories of an existence spent living in the present but also looking at the past with that sweet melancholy in grade of giving back serenity to his existence, because after all Julie lives in every flower of his shop, in every person asking for a flower, in every soul met during a day.

Their love was intense as the one described by Hemingway when young, still poor and plenty of hopes afforded to Paris: "We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warrm together and loved each other."

They had a special place, romantic, beloved, where they loved to indulge located in the romantic Left Bank of Paris: the bookstore Shakespeare and Company and the Café close to it. They loved to spend time there; it was romantic, it was close to Notre-Dame; and some people told that not too distant from Shakespare and Company there is the oldest tree of Paris. In this sentimental place, Dominique and Julie chatted, created the base of their future, or what it would have happened of their existences, and of their being a couple.

A couple destroyed by destiny too soon as they would have discovered.

There are many pills of wisdom in this book that will let you reflect about the meaning and fluidity of life; the same water won't pass under the same river two times and people change with age, with situations, with experiences and their expectations will become different, and nothing will return to be the same because time, maturity, a different vision of life thanks to the experience accumulated living will give a different perspective and vision of the whole.

Dominique has two friends who love to stops by everyday in his shop: Tilde (Matilde) and Mercedes from Spain. Both of them live in Paris from decades. Close friends, they seem to be two bodies and a soul but sometimes it is not true.

Violeta is the third spanish of this story. From Madrid, she is so sad. 23 years, pregnant, Pablo, her boyfriend cheated her.

She run away from her past, choosing Paris, and trying to cope with this new difficult situation. She needs a job and one day she asks  am help at Dominique. Dominique is impressed by this girl, because under many ways she looks like his poor wife. Plus she has the name of a flower.

The two become friends, and Violeta feels that Dominique is better than her dad under many ways. One day Dominique will offer her a tea in his house. Very warm place, Violeta will ask him if he can permits her of staying there.

Dominique accepts although the scent of a beautiful girl, young, reminds him of his past, Julie, and what he lived with her.

Mercedes's favorite place of the city is Shakespeare and Company. She loves to spend time there, in the first floor, lost in her thoughts, sat alone, close to all that books, hugged by the spirits of melacholy, as writes the author.

Mercedes one day disappears and considering that everyday Tilde and Mercedes says hello to Dominique and Violeta, people are worried and they start to investigate.

After all the existence of people can't be treated with superficiality.

Mercedes has had a heavy past and her beloved friends didn't know that once, although for a brief moment she had an important man in her existence.

Violeta will discover Etienne, the son of this man, Oscar, from Grenoble. The shocking story that Violeta will assimilate is important. Etienne wants to convince Mercedes that maybe it is better to meet Oscar, who, once, meant to her a lot.

Mercedes is horrified by the idea. That man hasn't been good with her; better to move on, better to forget the entire story, although not always is possible to forget.

Mercedes when she is at Shakespeare and Company loves to add little piece of papers in various books. A sign of her passage. One day Tilde will find one of them in a book by Olive Ann Burns Cold Sassy Tree: "Not thinking sometimes means happiness" she wrote her friend.

Tilde was sacrified by her parents. She didn't live her own life because she assisted her old parents, while the rest of her brothers and sisters created wonderful existences.

In this dense book, plenty of love, plenty of re-borns, departures and new beginnings and where life is sweet also when people have been heavily touched I found an emblematic phrase: No one feels melancholy for anyone, apart for ourselves and who we have been in the past.

An important thematic of the book is memory and the importance of a good partner. In the case of Mercedes the lost love, returned with the semblance of his son Etienne, asking to forgive him, asking for a visit because close to the end of his life, is like a wild hurricane in a placid existence.

Can the existence of a man be a "fake one" close to a new partner, because the previous one unforgettable?

Memories, facts, joys, worries of decades spent close to the choosen partner don't say anything?

For Oscar, no. Oscar, the ex partner of Mercedes continues to think of her, because he didn't love her well, because he didn't appreciate her, because he was superficial and for this superficiality he lost the most important gift of his existence.

If Mercedes doesn't want to see Oscar Violeta and Tilde will. And the meeting between Tilde in the role of Mercedes and Oscar will be straining.

At the end Tilde will think that she has again begged an "I love you" directed to someone else. Her life is like thetone portrayed by Giulietta Masina, adds strongly the author in The Nights of Cabiria, where the whore prays: prays for the arrival of a prince, someone special in grade of saving her, and her existence, although this dream won't never become true.

Tilde's life has always been...imaginary in the best and also sad sense of the word.

Grenoble is cold but feelings between Etienne and Violeta starts to become pretty warm and happy. Etienne understands Violeta and Violeta falls in love for Etienne.

What it follows is the happiness for the arrival of a new life, and at the same time the mutation of time, discovering that it is not too late for loving, but maybe that sometimes we won't never be in grade to love a new person as experiences Dominique. Dominique is a wonderful special soul, assisted by magical creatures and connected with the most beautiful parts of the universe; that universe that once his existence will be over, will hug him immediately, re-borning spiritually in the body of the  baby of Violeta, because life continues, and it is also magical.

I am speechless because this book is much more than what I would have expected to read.

It's an erudite book, where readers will also find great book suggestionss it's a book speaking of love.

Love seen with the eyes of maturity, and the one of youth; aeternal love, the one life won't never remove from the mind of people; it's a mixture of sweet but also bitter stories of a bunch of people who, for a reason of another expatriated in a romantic corner of Paris, where the sweetness of the city, its beauty, flowers, romantic corners, good croissants and cups of coffee will mitigate the asperity of life.

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori

Hell, no dial-up from more than a month

It's more than a month that I am experiencing a real hell: my dial-up internet connection doesn't work anymore. With what it means in terms of productivity, contacts, and also...peace of mind.

Well, February hasn't been a great month at all with four strong stresses.

Surely the lack of dial-up is the biggest problem not yet sorted out because at the moment everything, from e-mails to the visit of a website passes through  the smart phone. Which, happily, sucks the eyes in the real sense of the words and without too many compliments.

I write my reviews or pieces thanks to my desktop PC but then it's an adventure; I pass them on the flashdrive; then I connect the netbook with the flashdrive and my smartphone putting the pieces in the smartphone.

Then, I could save the pieces also in the format .DOC, it wouldn't be read on the smart phone; it appears in .RTF

So I must first of all convert the file in .DOC and only after I open the webpage for editing my review.

If you notice from more than a month at this part pictures up, down, everywhere, fonts characters extremely large or little, you know the reason.

I tried to contact a lot of other realities, apart my telephonic company, but no one is helpful because I live in a countryside.

I just hope that this problem will be resolved soon because I insist: the smartphone is a good solution but too tiring for eyes and it's not natural like to writing and  editing using a large screen.

I thank all of you for reading my reviews, and for being such affectionate readers.

Anna Maria Polidori

Se I Pesci Guardassero le Stelle If Fishes would Look at the Stars by Luca Ammirati

When I started to read Se I Pesci

Guardassero le Stelle If Fishes would Look at the Stars by Luca Ammirati at first I thought that it would have been a quick reading. Oh boy, boy, I cried so badly reading this book because it touches important and crucial thematic of our society, from work, most of the time unpaid, to the mutation of a society always more anchored to the virtual; not only: there is also the human condition, more isolated, more "lost" in comparison to the ones of  the past decades.

I tell you that I love so badly the location choosen by the  writer: Sanremo. Liguria is one of the most stunning italian regions that we have; not only. It's warm most of the time. As Luca writes, there are 300 days of sun in a year. It says a lot. I visited it a lot of years ago, spending some time to Alassio as well I can tell you that they're fascinating, beautiful locations. A Paradise. For what I remember prices are not exxagerated at all, and...It's warm.

How nice!

Who is the protagonist of this book? His name is Samuele he is in his 30s; he is a reporter for a local online magazine. He was so lucky because he was in grade to being paid from the beginning, with a regular contract thanks to a beautiful video created for an event. Samuele is specialized in following events. Substantially the most important one is the Festival of the Italian Song, but apart it, thanks to the good weather, there are appointments in every moment of the year.

Samuele is still not certain of his future. He is in love for example for advertising; online ones; the ones passing on YouTube; or before to seeing a movie and so on interests him so badly. He would want to try to launch himself into that career, but it's difficult. This society it's difficult. There are no certainties; what it is true yesterday it is not anymore real today.

Samuele lives alone with Galileo, his gold fish, called Leo.

It's with Leo that he talks most of the time and these dialogues are absolutely the moments more beauty of this book, because the mirror of our times.

Once Samuele will tell to Leo: "I envy you. Your silence is more elegant than our chats... Today clatters in social medias, a continuous barking lost in the ether, provoking a disconnection between what it is real and what it is virtual, prisoners of a collective enourmus lie."

Samuele thinks that he is "wrong" somewhere: he doesn't have certainties; his parents were honest with him. They wouldn't never have wanted for him this kind a life, but they would have dreamt for him a workplace as every other normal person.

Most of the time Samuele is strained, because he would want to try to understand his future, but that future  is plenty of uncertaties. He is not so sure that he wants to continue the profession of reporter, but at the same time he doesn't know if his future will be in the advertising. His projects rejected all the times.

Samuele is appreciated because of his loving character by everyone. The caretaker where he lives is a lady of 80 years, mrs Verrando.

Born in Sanremo she will tell him how fascinated she was for a city with such a blue sea, boats, beautiful estates, gardens and the powerful love and admiration felt for this city by British Lords and North Europeans attracted by the sweet weather of the Riviera Ligure.

She married a man who sent her beautiful love-letters when they were married.

Samuele works also at the Astronomic Observatory of Perinaldo. Cassini was the most important ligurese astronomer and everyone go proud of him. Looking at the stars, as everyone know, there are many notions in the book, we see our past, the light reflected hundreds of years ago, for staying "young". Men are composed by stardust; maybe for this reason they look at the sky, asking for a wish; hoping for something of beauty in their existences. Because we are made of that same nature and we shine and we cant think at obscurity and darkness as human condition. 

It was a night like another one, when Samuele, profoundly open and friendly met at the end of a meeting of interested people at Perinaldo a girl. She is alone. Elegant, beauty, sensual. He thinks that he is dreaming. Abruptly, all his uncertainties regarding life don't exist anymore. There is this powerful now. The girl is misterious; and this component, the one of mystery will be in grade to capture the imagination of Samuele per months.

Considering that after the visit, just for her, at the Observatory, she didn't have any place where to go but she had also to eat a dish of pasta, Samuele invites her at his house.

He would have prepared tagliolini al pesto, a specialty of the area.

They ate and drunk, talking and staying relaxed. When they went to bed Samuele, tired for the emotions experienced, and also, considering that Emma was in the bathroom closed the eyes, and the day after, Emma and her mysteries...gone forever, apart for a kiss in the mirror of his bathroom left as memory that Emma realistically passed for his house and she was not the fruit of too much wine.

This fact put Samuele in a profound chaos.

For Samuele, a good soul, not a cynical one, starts a tremendous moment of perdition. Who was Emma? He fell in love for her, although there was  just a hug; nothing else. Not a kiss. Nothing, nothing. But he understood that the girl entered powerfully in its imaginery world and also in his dreams. His life became a nightmare.

Iacopo is a friend of him completely different. He is a real playboy; he changes girl every two-three weeks; when situation becomes too heavy he invents some places where he must goes, a trip for work, in grade to keep him away for a lot of months so good-bye baby.

When he understands that Samuele is losing the head for a girl, not understanding his feelings, he tries his best. A new girl, strong discussions, but there is nothing to do.

Ilenia is another friend. Romantic, she is a great baker of wonderful local dishes, like the famous Baci of Sanremo. You find the recipes at page 192-193. Yum, they must be delicious!

Ilenia will try her best, suggesting him a lot of modalities for searching for this Emma, still a phantom in grade to put Samuele in a depressive, hallucinating state.

Mysteries after all are not at the end of a trip but in the situations that are put in motion will tell to Samuele someone.

At the same time Samuele speaks again with Leo, his gold fish. "You are looking at me but I don't know if you see me. But...Sometimes we, humans are looking at a lot of things but without to see them realistically. ...We are tragics and comicals at the same time and densperately humans. Maybe we are not creatures destined to be happy. We are in war with labor, and anxiety. Because it's always there, close to us, the embarassment of not being good, of not being in grade to realize anything, of not being strong enough..."

During a food-session eating delicious farinata with the caretaker and many compliments about his good character and manner, the 80 years old lady remembers him of not losing any day of joy. Because, after all life is like a farinata made with two simple ingredients: water and chickpeas flour. It has simple, precise answers at big questions.

Samuele is an enthusiastic, but when he starts a new project, if he doesn't see any result, becomes pessimistic.

At some point, and starting from the fact that Emma told him that she was an illustrator of childrens's books, Samuele thought that he had discovered who that Emma was, although when he will contact her he will discover that she was not the one he was searching for.

Emma becomes his obession; depression creates a good and fertile creative state in Samuele, noticed also by his own grumpy editor.

An editor not sure about the future of the online magazine and with the idea of firing at some point a desperate young man without any certainty anymore.

Speaking with Leo: "Our mouth is plenty of projects, although we miss the courage of capturing what it's ours, taking what realistically we wish. This world kills fantasy, takes our emotions, emptying them....Sometimes I think that I won't never have a future. That I won't never be ready. That I won't never leave a sign." But is it possible not dreaming at all? No, tells Samuele to Leo. It's indispensible to dream also when someone could steal our dreams, also when dream won't never become anything. "How can we renounce at these little illusions that let us think that maybe one day we will concretize something? How could we stop dreaming?"

Fired at work, with an advertising project pretty important with a close deadline, Samuele is continuously more devastated. At some point he decides he wants to keep forever with him the kiss of Emma impressed in the mirror and buys a chemical lotion in grade to save it. His friends are always more worried.

Ilenia at some point, although optimistical by nature, imagine a different future: she thinks at  St.Valentine not anymore celebrated sending texts or messages via whatsup, but with real cards, real letters, a real box of chocolate, real flowers. Sanremo is a teacher in this sense.

I admit I lived it, teddy bears, box of chocolates, letters and romantic greeting cards and it is priceless, I agree.

Fired and desperate, without work, Samuele imagines an homeless existence. He doesn't know what will happen of him. He speaks with Leo, all worried: "Folks are scared of themselves...We influence each other hoping that something would change, but nothing changes. Never."

Not only: Samuele speaking with Leo focuses on time.

"We miss time. Time for thinking at the real things of our existence, time for being happy giving the right value at this complicated thing that it is the existence."

After all most of us tells Samuele to Leo are "Like you, Leo. Thrown in a transparent vase, without to have chosen it." Prisoners in a word, of circumstancies created by others, by ourselves.

But to Samuele men in this water starts to live with a certain spirit of adaptability.

"We grope thinking that we can't become what we dreamt and we....suffocate..."

Once fired, Samuele, thanks to Leo, his fish, will send a special and original project at the advertising society ending up in the rose of the five finalists ones.

One of the finalists convocated at Palazzo Barberini in Rome is his special phantom girl...Emma.

It is a clarifying chat that one. Emma will tell him of her uncertainties: "They have stolen our dreams and hope, cheating us, convincing us that working for free is the normality...Not only they don't permit us to build anything, but they have also let us lose the desire of reborning , and it's unfair."

Samuele is a boy with a large heart in grade of sharing the luck arrived at Palazzo Barberini. His project in fact is chosen and his future brilliant, for what a future at the moment can be brilliant.

But he will share with Emma his happiness, his future, and his work, recognizing that working in team is better, understanding also that life is not a joke and help is important.

I don't know if it's because Ammirati works as responsible at the press office of the Theater Ariston, so surrounded by music, romanticism, love, the sum of this book is of an intensity devastating, although, apparently this one would be a quick reading because apart for the felt reflections dedicated to Leo the gold fish, the rest of the writing is quick, populated by a lot of dialogues. But, the thematic treated are not a joke: they are like a punch in the stomach.

Being a journalist I know what it means, so I also suffered because of this reason.

Se I Pesci Guardassero le Stelle, If Fishes Would Look at The Stars is also beauty because in the intense sufference and perdition of the main characters, there is some hope. Not certainties. Some hopes.

Old ones as you will see have certainties, but after all they didn't live in a crazy moment as we do, I always say, and there was a complete different humanity, fruit of poverty, war, misery and real values. When you see a real devastation, you put aside egoisms; you just want to embrace your dear ones and your neighbors with great love and friendship; some young ones built their own shell for protecting themselves from the hurts of life.

Who haven't been in grade to do that, or simply, didn't put any mask to their persons, maybe will live a more straining existence, who knows?

A mirror of our times, highly recommended to everyone for the strong and impacting thematic.

I would want to suggest to the author of creating  a Saint Valentine's movement promoting real letters, greetings cards, and little gifts leaving alone the internet for once.

I thank DeaPlaneta for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Tutti i Morti Volano in Alto by Joachim Meyerhoff

Intense, sad, profound, dense. It's this and much more the book Tutti i Morti Volano in Alto by Joachim Meyerhoff

published by Marsilio.

Reading some lines from the reviews on the back cover this one was presented as a humoristic book, but it is not that, forget it and honestly I didn't pick up this book for that purpose, but because I know a lot of people who spent a year in the USA and one of them lived at just 2 km from us. We live in a rural area in center of Italy, and it says a lot when someone leave for a distant land like the USA returning with more culture and with a language learned very well.

It's a book this one in grade to penetrate feelings, sensations, moods, little stories, big events, (the death of Elvis Presley while the protagonist was in the USA), changes with strong lucidity and with a honest, frank point of view; without omitting anything but restituting an imagine of the reality absolutely adorable.

Narrated by the young Joachim, in first person, precisely by the man he became, this book will describe his being a teen-ager, his sensations, with the first important discoveries and with an electrifiying opportunity: to afford to the USA for a year thanks to money of his grand-parents.

Joachim is not exactly great at school in fact. He has his problems, he loves baseball and when he goes to Amburg for the selection he thinks that no one will pick him up.

All the rest of that teenagers, from the city seemed to be born for a trip of a year in the USA. That people, as will tell Joachim sounded to be born for that. Their future was clear; he could visualize their parentes; their clothes, their shoes talked for them.

Where the hell did he want to go?

Joachim was a provincial, someone who didn't care for the appearance; his shoes weren't spectacular or of a special brand; his shirt didn't speak of a great brand, his hair not so nice and with a cut defined like the one of that teen-agers.  

He was someone who could forget cities like New York or Los Angeles, because, he thought, no one would have chosen him for these destinations. So he added the most improbable answers. Very devoted to church (not true); ready to sleep in bedrooms with other children of the American Family, and so on.

With much joy and surprise one day he discovered that he was chosen for his American adventure and that the city, very little, located in Wyoming was Laramie. A little center; what Joachim at the end wanted to go thanks to his answers.

His American family was composed by Stan, Hazel and three children; the rudest one Don; he couldn't tolerate the presence of Joachim and did all his best for keeping his permancence in the USA unwanted.

The rest of the family welcomed Joachim with affection.

The couple had grown up children and the arrival of Joachim meant to Stan new life in an apparent still empty nest (their children all gone somewhere else in the while and back only after more than a week from his arrival.)

The scholastic topics picked up by Joachim not too strong or serious, english apart.

He also visited a jail and once he would have received also the visit per months once returned home of a prisoner who had killed two people.

While he had just spent three months in the USA a terrible shocking news devastated his family. His brother, the one who would have become a doctor died in a car incident.

The narrator remembers that to him his brother is still alive and when someone ask him how many brothers he has, he replies two, defining also the profession of his brother: "He is a doctor."

This one was a destructive pain.

Nothing had sense anymore. Food, furniture in a room, time, people.

It was as if that sufferance had impregnated their existences; as if it would have spoken for them.

His parents were devastated. They were all orphan of a fantastic son and brother.

They all knew that.

Joachim couldn't stay there; it was too suffocating. He decided of leaving again for the USA. His dad asked him if he wouldn't have considered the option of staying but...

Joachim was too tired of crying and consoling and sleeping and mourning and thinking at the meaning of life...He wanted to live.

Better...What he did was to try to search for that normality that in his family, in North of Germany at the moment couldn't find anymore.

The arrival in the USA was characterized this time by new impulse, by the discovery of a girl, a first American love and by many adventures and his return the one he had dreamed about.

Without forgetting that, one of his brothers, now, remains much more young than him, because time passed by for everyone but not for his beloved brother.

Incredibly touching, I loved this book so badly; I cried a lot as well and I hope to read also the first book by Meyerhoof.

I suggest it to everyone, including to all that students interested to spend a year in the USA.

Tutti i Morti Volano in Cielo was relaxing under many other aspects because the boy afforded in the USA before 9/11 and before cell phones, smart phone and PCS, so giving us back a beautiful, wonderful picture of that beloved world we sometimes miss so badly because it was real.

Highly recommended.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

La Stella di Andra e Tati The Star of Andra and Tati by Alessandra Viola and Rosalba Vitellaro

200.000 children spent as prisoners their time in Auschwitz-Birkenau but just 50 returned home, alive. All the rest died along the way.

For experiments conducted by horripilant doctors, or just because too starved, too frail for resisting at that devastation.

Now: I read wagons of material about people who survived the horror of Auschwitz, since I was little.

I had the pleasure, later, of interviewing a survivor of Auschwitz, Lee Staub, but I hadn't never read a book written with the purpose of giving to the reader the point of view of children internated in a camp, horrible, hopeless, like the one of Auschwitz-Birkenau was, where every human gesture was banned.

It is impressive La Stella di Andra e Tati The Star of Andra and Tati by Alessandra Viola and Rosalba Vitellaro published by DeAgostini italian publishing house.

Written superbly well, it is a shocking account of what it was not just being prisoners in a camp like that one, but how passive, resigned became these two children, protagonist of the story. They played while in the camp, they tried to stay cheerful but they forgot what it meant to be loved. It's a story of adaptability, mental flexibility this one that in children is incredibly elevated. They grew up for a while in the innaturality of hate and disdain; forgetting the beauty of the world because children forget; Andra and Tati forgot their past, people met along their way; they forget their mother, father, family, also, at some point, because they were not anymore important, their names.

Their normality was to playing, with, close to them corpses;  it was the normality the grey ash of the corpses cremated. They didn't know what it was. They didn't like but there were these things in the camp. Not flowers, nor music, or books, not a good cup of tea with a slice of cake.

There was just this: horror.

Born in Fiume in 1937 and 1939, Tati and Andra Bucci were children of Giovanni Bucci, a catholic man and Mira Perlow, Jewish.

The sister of Mira married Eduardo De Simone and lived to Naples.

Fiume sounded pretty tolerant with Jewish, but after the armistice of Sept 8th 1943 the city decided of applying the Jewish laws wanted by Mussolini and deportations could start.

The cousin of Andra and Tati, Sergio, was with them and his mother, thinking that maybe they would have been more safe in Fiume. Not only it was not like that, but Sergio died with other children of a horrible death later.

But...Let's see the existence of these two children Andra and Tati of 4 and 6 years

I start to tell to my readers that I recognized most of the games I also played with when I was little.

These children loved dolls and diversified games; once they also searched with their dad in the sky a precise star to look at when daddy would have been absent from home because a sailor, so that they could have thought at him and viceversa.

They played outside with other children, they were happy and joyous, respected, loved by everyone; abruptly everything changed.

At the bakery store there was something written that their mother didn't like to read preferring not to buy the bread there; same was in other stores. Children didn't want to play with them anymore and when Andra and Tati asked why, children said them because they were Jewish and it could have been dangerous to play with them. Why that? What the hell meant that, thought these two children.

That Germans were ready to de-materialize and destroy under every sense the great dignity, culture, humanity of Jewish and other minorities, it was clear; they did it coldly, with a dishumanity that it was shocking.

When the entire family Bucci was captured, granny included, they then were forced to enter in a train but it wasn't a normal train, with chairs, with windows where it was possible to see the panorama, where people could talk.

These kids  with their family and many other people entered in a suffocating place, without windows, without a bathroom, withouth any touch of that dignity that a person should have, because a person. There was just a very little window.

The trip was long, various days; in the while people urinated, defecated everywhere, started to be starved but mainly there was profound costernation, sadness, and desperation. Desperation because people knew: knew that this hate of Germans was horrible, immense and senseless.

Andra and Tati slept most of the time, shocked, devastated, starved.

Their arrival was tremendous. Icy. Germans didn't have any kind of human touch for anyone. Left, right, left right, it was what a german soldier, yes, Mengele, repeated continously to them. But that two simple destinations, that two simple words, that simple gesture meant life or death.

The granny of these two children immediately sent to the gas chambers.

Andra, Tati, Sergio, their mothers, saved.

Then they went in another place where they cut their hair, and once removed their clothes, shoes, Germans "presented" them the prisoner's uniform; then there was the tattoo. Andra was 76483 and Tatiana 76484.

They became numbers.

Then Tati, Andra and Sergio were divided from their mothers.

The sisters thought that these men were pretty rude: what the hell did they do to them for being so nasty?

Children stayed in areas called kinderblock dedicated to them, with a lady, heartless most of the time: the responsible of these children was called blokova. She offered them everyday a horrible soup and some hard bread.

At first Andra refused to eat the soup and children starved, ate it with a fury similar to the one of animals.

Starvation is not a joke. Old generations know it very well.

Children played with stones, with whatever they could find. Sometimes it was precious to find an object, but also dangerous, because if germans would have discovered that they had something, they would have killed them.

One day they met their mother. Mira reached them with great peril and although at first they didn't recognize her, then they did. Mira was so skinny now. She said them of not forget their names.

The kids would have later played at the game of: I am Tati Bucci and you? I am Andra Bucci. Glad to meet you. Do we want to be sisters?

Sergio in the while, if a wonderful character, positive, at home, plenty of creative games, always with the smile on his face became silent and didn't want to participate at their games when in the camp. He was missing his mom tremendously.

One day the blokova offered to Tati and Andra when there was a heavy snow something warm to wear. Risking a lot.

Another time she admonished them: "Don't say at the doctor in visit soon that you want to see you mother." It was a trap for experiments on children.

They shared this information with Sergio, their cousin, but Sergio preferred to go, and died in a devastating, horrible way.

The camp was set free by Russians and the kids destinate in an orphanage in Prague because no one knew who they were and where they were from.

Different language, that sisters didn't have any kind of humanity, remember the children.

Then, one day the arrival of someone. They were asking for Jewish kids. They were Jewish.

They went so to Lingfield, UK. A rich man had decided of helping these children still without parents giving them an estate where they could in the while recuperate the lost serenity and that cottage, oh, was so lovely, dreaming and enchanting.

Lingfield represented for Andra and Tati the Paradise after years of horror and sufferance. They received wonderful food and gifts; they had a birthday, (they didn't remember when they were born of course, too little) and there was a constant, joyous atmosphere plenty of good slices of cake, tea, love. It didn't seem real. They started to love the people of the staff, and the rest of children with which, after years, they were in grade to become friends with.

But one day Miss Lauren the coordinator, let them see a picture of two happy people. "Do you recognize them?" They were their parents, although that imagine said something but not a lot to them, because they had forgotten them in the while.

Constricted to leave Lingfield for meeting the parents, these two children happy and cheerful were devastated. Why leaving good food, and friendship and good people for the unknown? And who were that people? Would they have met the same atmosphere that they were breathing at Lingfield?

The children didn't speak italian anymore, and when they saw their mother they were not so enthusiastic. Another change. When Miss Lauren left them with the mother days after their arrival it was devastating to them because they loved that nice lady. She saved them in a moment of profound difficulty.

Nothing returned as it was before as Tati and Andra told.

When the normality becomes not eating, not living, being treated as a wild beast without love, attention, dedication; when it's the normality to play seeing wagons of corpses close to you; when you could be killed because you cried too much, when you were not a person anymore, no, it's normal that nothing can return to a normality.

Although little when children see too much, live too much, it's difficult to cope with it, and tensions and emotions subsequent at the facts experienced return on surface sometimes. The brain of a kid is more plastic than the one of an adult, but there is also to add that it is like a sponge in grade to absorb the beauty and the horrible part of the existence, and these experiences will remain forever. That's why a kid should never suffer for a second. And these children saw the horror.

I was thinking at that star, searched by Tati, Giovanni and Andra in a moment of joy and at the impossibility for these children to look at the sky for searching for it later, because simply too devastated by their internal pain, fear, and horror; they didn't remember the beauty of the world; that there was someone to love; they didn't know that dreams were still possible; that  maybe there was somewhere, a different life.

But they survived. These ex children are now positive ladies, and they want to share with everyone what they experienced. With their story  was born the first cartoon movie about the Holocaust and every year these two sisters share their experience returning in Auschwitz with scholastic groups, because it's important not to forget but remember, constantly remember what the human cruelty is in grade to do, for hate, for discrimination.

It's a wonderful book for your children this one.

Start a good conversation with your children about what it meant the horror of the past world war, and the immensity of sufferance that left behind. Be brutal. Don't hide nothing. Maybe they won't sleep for one night, but then they won't never forget that once horrible men created this mess; that learned lesson will remain in their mind forever.

I thank DeaPlaneta for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori