Unfolded book club:
BRUNO MUNARI’S DESIGN AS ART (1966)

“CHILDREN’S BOOKS”

On iTunes · on spotify

“Knowing children is like knowing cats. Anyone who does not like cats will not like children or understand them….”

—Bruno Munari, “Children’s Books”, Design as Art (Arte come mestiere)

EPISODE NOTES

One of the goals of this podcast is to create an audio library of excerpts of books about books since so few books in design and print culture are available in an audio format.

This humorous short essay on children’s books from Munari’s 1966 iconic Art as Design (Penguin Classics) is both ironic and sincere. It touches on Munari’s understanding that children’s books ought to help children explore and understand the world around them rather than tell them outdated fairy tales.* He is critical of children’s publishing that prioritizes commercial (adult-oriented) needs. Munari’s goal was to delight and surprise children and he takes them seriously as “readers”, even when he produced books that lacked words or even pictures.

This is the first in a short series for this podcast about innovative Italian children’s book design.

*My annotation for this section of the essay includes references to Shockheaded Peter and to Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales and Edward Gorey’s Gashleycrumb Tinies.

MORE FROM ME ON MUNARI

· video: ⁠“Little Green Riding Hood”
· audio: interview with Pietro Corraini
· audio: part 1 of “Revolutions of the Water Mill”
· audio: part 2 of “Revolutions of the Water Mill”

images referenced