Topipittori

Hello everyone, and apologies for the small silence — we have spent the last two weeks in Italy. Since we are only just back, I would love to share some Italian picture books by the wonderful Topipittori with you. Their catalogue alone is worth a long evening on the sofa.

Topipittori is an independent picture book publisher, founded in Milan in 2004 by Giovanna Zoboli and Paolo Canton. From the very beginning they took a deliberately international approach, publishing work by Belgian, British, Croatian, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish and Portuguese authors and illustrators. Their reasoning is that national cultures are not enough to help children grow up, and national markets are not enough for publishing companies to thrive. It is a generous, outward-looking position — one that comes through clearly in the kind of books they make.

Naturally, the catalogue is also full of wonderful work by Italian illustrators. One I keep returning to is by Antonella Abbatiello and the much-loved poet Bruno Tognolini — a book of rhymes devoted to the world of fairy tales. An alphabet of words and images, letter after letter, walks the child reader through the themes, meanings and symbols that thread through fairy tales of all times and traditions. The result is somewhere between a poem, a primer and a small, personal encyclopaedia.

Visually, the Topipittori list has a particular look — printed on uncoated paper, generously spaced, with a great trust in white space and in the reader. The covers always feel as if they have been considered for a long time. The books open flat. The end papers are never an afterthought.

If you do not yet know them, I would start with Filastrocche per tutto l’anno and let yourself wander from there.