The Adventures of Pinocchio

Discover the enduring children’s classic about the wooden puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy, if only he could stop misbehaving

Everyone knows the Disney film Pinocchio, but the original, dark story of the boy puppet is crying out to be rediscovered. A poor Florentine craftsman called Gepetto is delighted to be given a gift of talking wood and immediately sets about carving it into the shape of a marionette puppet. His creation is Pinocchio, a mischievous boy who runs away as soon as he learns to walk. Little Pinocchio finds it very hard to be good, and constantly struggles to learn the life lessons which Gepetto and other characters try to teach him. When a talking cricket tries to warn Pinocchio about being obedient, Pinocchio accidentally kills him—a very different fate to Jiminy Cricket’s in the Disney film. A constant struggle to avoid danger and try to be good eventually leads Pinocchio to try hard at school and pass with flying colors. He meets a good fairy, and after a few detours such being sold to a circus, Pinocchio eventually proves to her that he is good, although he is disappointed to still be a puppet. The fairy then throws him a party and transforms him into a real boy at last. An entertaining story for children, with deeper meanings for the adults who read it to them, Pinocchio is an enduring tale of the difficulty of behaving well and what it means to be good.