“The time came when Taras had to start to train herself to become a ruler of the kingdom...”In this way an allegorical novella begins, a story with medieval taste and references to Zen Philosophy. This novel written by Alessandra Marconato is dedicated to adults, inviting them to keep growing and working on themselves.“Taras made her farewell to Maestro and left, she entered into the Forest of illusions...she had the gaze of a person who knew where to go but, at the same time, she lived in a thoughtlessness way..”What will happen along the way? Encounters, adventures, silences, choices.A suggestive path of growth during which magical elements weave together to discover a personal identity and a “social role”.Among fantastic places, animal totems and visions, Taras will lead us along the Forest to conquer our personal Kingdom...Through an evocative and direct narration, Alessandra Marconato traces a path thanks to which the reader can come back home with a different self-consciousness and a new vision of the world and others.
This is not a handbook or a course: it is an original and interesting text, which needs to be deciphered and devised while reading.The novel is pleasant and consuming reading, it captivates not only an adult audience, but also preteens and teenagers. The novel is, in fact, a motivational path and an opportunity for personal growth, which encourages young people to develop and use critically linguistic/communicative and interpersonal tools to interact constructively.The main character is a non-gender specific person– we do not know if Taras is a boy or a girl; the author has decided not to sexually classify the main character in order to overcome stereotypes and to promote a personal growth which has nothing to do with gender.Young readers can easily empathize with Taras and his/her personal experiences, adventures and meetings in order to understand their own growth and social and affective relationships.