The Admiral Has Nicked the Sky

“The sky belongs to everyone” – Gianni Rodari.

Driven by blind greed, a stern admiral gets it into his head to steal the impossible: the sky! And so he begins: he folds up the clouds, sews up the lightning bolts with cross-stitch, turns off the sunsets with a switch. In a moment, it’s done: the sky is his, only emptiness remains, and everyone misses the sunsets, the clouds and even the storms… But then, a boy notices a little tear in the large white sheet. And so he pulls and pulls, with everyone’s help, until the tear widens and the sky overflows once more among the pages, going back to being what it has always been and always will be: a gift for everyone. Truly everyone: a little piece is left even for the admiral.

The images are a mixture of photography and drawing. The sky, represented with different photos every time, is always a creased, folded or scrunched up piece of paper according to the admiral’s greedy fury.

A book dedicated to Gianni Rodari and to all dreamers, where fantasy and innocence overcome people’s indifference and injustice.