Modern Languages Professor Authors Children’s Book
April 22, 2019
Dr. Chiara De Santi
As a child in Tuscany, Italy, Chiara De Santi would sit at her nanny’s feet and listen to the story of Pidocchione, a giant insect.
Years later, Dr. Chiara De Santi, is an assistant professor of Modern Languages at FSC. And now, Dr. De Santi is an author, having taken those childhood tales and fashioning them into a children’s book, C’era una volta un Pidocchione who travelled the world.
C’era una volta un Pidocchione who travelled the world tells the story of il Signor Pidocchione (Mr. Pidocchione), an insect who wears a suit and a hat, who lived in Tuscany, Italy, and who decided to travel the world. His story is about the beauty of traveling, discovering other languages and cultures, and appreciating diversity, while being caring, generous, and respectful of others. Dr. De Santi tells the story through translanguaging, using both English and Italian within the same phrases, to show young readers how bilinguals communicate.
To make the book even more interesting, it’s s a family affair: Dr. De Santi wrote the text; her husband, Dr. Alexander Caviedes, director of AAIC at FSC, edited it; and her daughters, Sofia and Julia, provided the illustrations.
“As the author of the story, I have had in mind to write this children’s book for several years, but I never took the first step,” Dr. De Santi said. “While the first draft was in Italian, I subsequently decided to present the story in English: I wanted it to reach all the children of the world.”
