I'm Not Scared - Niccolò Ammaniti
Right from the start of this book we are immersed in the world of children, a world of innocence, cruelty, fear and half understood elements of the adult world around them. The world is partly the world of fable, in as much as witches and monsters form part of the child narrator's understanding of the world. I will try to keep the plot out of this post as it is driven by a simple yet involving plot which I don't want to spoil for anyone.
This is in part a horror story, in part a rite of passage story showing how a child's understanding of the world grow and the horizons of his vision expand. The way something can suddenly APPEAR in the world of a child, despite having been there all along, is beautifully illustrated early on when the children go to explore the farm on which some legendarily vicious pigs live. They intend throwing a hen in to the pigs to "see how they tear it apart."
"'But papa will kill me if we take one of his hens,' Remo wailed.
It was no use, the idea was a really good one." Ideas, if powerful enough, give birth to their actuality.
