Cuore (Heart): An Italian Schoolboy's Journal

About this book

Enrico, a boy in the third grade at a school in Turin, keeps a diary through one school year in the early 1880s. He writes about his classmates, rich and poor, the brave, the bullies and the boy whose father is in prison; about his teachers; and he copies the letters of advice his parents write in his notebook. Each month his teacher reads a 'monthly story' of heroic children from every part of Italy, among them the famous 'From the Apennines to the Andes', about a boy who crosses the ocean to Argentina in search of his mother.

Context and significance

Edmondo De Amicis (1846–1908), a former army officer and journalist, published the book in 1886, and for generations it was one of the most read books in Italy, meant to unite the children of the newly unified country; it has been translated into many languages, Arabic among them. Isabel Hapgood's translation is used here. Compare Tom Brown's School Days.

About the author