Eredità del Novecento. Il lascito munariano alla letteratura per l’infanzia

Bruno Munari left an important legacy both to Italian and international children’s literature. The hallmarks of this legacy are traditionally considered to be his picture books and their unique visual narratives, illustrations and tactile surfaces. This essay, however, takes a different approach to interpreting his work. It uses a selection of Munari’s picture books to demonstrate how the extent of his legacy is far more wide-reaching, depicting it as a crossroads that links various features of his long career as an artist and designer. These features include the extraordinary nature of everyday life, faith in the visual, and the challenges laid down by limits, all of which are also fundamental to contemporary children’s literature.