My review is based on the Geoffrey Brock translation published by NYRB in 2009. I was browsing for a birthday present for my partner when I came across this book. Familiar with the Disney film (although not a fan) and having studied fairy tales and children's literature at university, I thought this new translation looked very interesting.

My immediate thoughts were that there was something very Lemony Snicket about the narrator. The novel starts with a play on the traditional "Once upon a time..." opening with an interjection from the children who are listening/reading the novel. Several times within the text, the author refers to his listeners (not readers as presumably the book works best when read to children). I love a bit of metafiction, and this book has quite a lot of it.

The novel is darker and there is much more to the plot that the much more linear Disney version that most people are familiar with. The Blue Fairy has a more recurring role and the cricket... well, lets just say something happens to the cricket early on which you might not expect if you only know Disney's Jimminy Cricket!

I would thoroughly recommend this novel to all readers - adults and children. ( )

demented, wonderful, awesome art. Pinocchio is not the story that Disney told you. Chapter titles like "Pinocchio" gets hanged abound. ( )

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi is almost a fairy tale. There is a magical fairy, there are talking animals, and of course, there is talking marionette who wants to be a real boy. And yet, Collodi’s tale fell just a little short of fairy tale status because of the obvious moralizing lessons: the lessons substantially subtracted from the fairy tale-like charm. Nonetheless, children may enjoy Pinocchio’s adventures, and they will probably also learn from Pinocchio’s mistakes and scold him for his foolish choices as they follow him along the path to becoming a real boy.

More detailed review on my blog

About a little boy who wanted to be real and not just a puppet. ( )

What a bratty whiner. I might be glad to have read it. But right now I'm just disappointed that Pinocchio was such a whiner. ( )