By Lauren Bell
One child turns left: the other right.
Pippo, Clara, and Mamma are a small but resilient family, displaced by unrest in Italy and driven by frequent location. With their arrival in an unnamed Italian city, Mamma goes out one night and doesn’t come back. Clara, the eldest child, goes out to look for her the following morning. A little while later, Pippo wakes to find both missing and goes out searching as well.
One child turns left: the other right.
Neither child has any concept of time, and the moment of losing each other is intensified. Both children think they see their mother with her golden eyes and layered necklaces, but both are mistaken and propelled into two very different worlds.
One child turns left: the other right.
Clara is taken in by the intimidating Signore and Signora, a childless fascist couple who are heavily involved with the city’s politics. Pippo is taken in by Donna and Mario, a joyful communist couple. While Pippo is dazzled by the prospects of becoming a communist and begins working as a messenger for a secret resistance group, Clara is enrolled into Mussolini’s school system and thrust into Italy’s fascist society. However, secret readings with a Jewish librarian keep Clara skeptical of the ideals she learns in school.
One child turns left: the other right.
In more ways than one, the children and their “new” respective families are foils of each other. Where Clara is a loner, quiet and bookish, Pippo is outgoing, described as a “chattering bird”. Within their character development, Clara matures by becoming more risk-taking and open to others, whereas Pippo becomes more serious, taking on the more caregiver-oriented roles for his family. There are many times within the novel when the two siblings almost cross paths, which only become more frequent as both families stop fighting for their political ideals and instead choose to fight for humanity. As the plot unrolls, Diana Rosie, the author, shows her mastery of dropping subtle hints and foreshadowing.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Pippo & Clara by Diana Rosie and would very much recommend it to others. I found that she was able to reflect Italy’s moral dilemma into one family, as well as tie in bildungsroman and family themes within the plot. For instance, I really appreciated that she often used the colours red, green, and white as motifs. Her characters were real and interesting to read about as there was neither the perfect villain nor the perfect hero. Moreover, Rosie was very adept at building suspense, which is perhaps another reason why I found it hard to put down.
Thank you, Publishing Group Canada, for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.