For my mother Rosalia and my brother Cosimo to keep on playing with them. — M.L.
For Melania and the hideaway we created together. — A.S.
Melania Longo is an art historian who specializes in the study of reading images with a focus on responses to illustrated books. She has collaborated with Alessandro Sanna before. Hideaway is her first book to be translated into English.
Alessandro Sanna is one of Italy’s leading contemporary illustrators. His books have received wide recognition including from The New York Times and The New Yorker. He recently served as Italian Children’s Laureate.
Hideaway
This edition published in 2023 by Red Comet Press, LLC, Brooklyn, NY
First published as Tana
Italian text © 2022 Melania Longo • Illustrations © 2022 Alessandro Sanna First published in 2022 by Editrice Il Castoro Viale Andrea Doria 7, 20124 Milano (Italia) www.editriceilcastoro.it
Translation by Brenda Porster English translation © Red Comet Press, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023930544
ISBN (HB): 978-1-63655-084-8
ISBN (Ebook): 978-1-63655-085-5 23 24 25 21 26 TLF 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Manufactured in China
My hideaway is a house of slender branches and singing leaves woven in greenery, breathing freshness.
No one can come in, only me and the person I told the secret to one day. The hideaway has two caretakers now, me and my favorite friend in adventure.
You have to move slowly inside, and my brother, with his long legs, makes a piece fall down every time he comes to visit. But it’s nothing to worry about.
We always burst out laughing and get busy right away doing and undoing, inventing a new way to make our hideaway stand up.
Even though there isn’t much room in our hideaway, for us, it has no limits: our imagination takes flight and makes us happy.
We have everything we need flashlight magnifying glass crayons drawing paper
cookies
water bottle a recorder our pebble collection a tin box with precious notes inside.
When we go outside we kneel to the sun. We greet its rays of light and set about searching for stones to draw on and leaves to collect.
At night we stretch out on the grass open our eyes wide to the shining blue, we read the stars and listen to the swarming silence of others who, like us, are still not sleeping.
When it snows outside, we hold our steaming breath and warmed by our words we forget it is winter.
It excites us to meet a white adventure gather some snow and drink it from a coffee cup.
In summer we build a porch, and look for shade to nap under while the cicadas are singing. We prepare mint tea and wait for someone to come to call.
At five on the dot we share new jokes. We change our faces, dance and make funny voices. We fish notes of paper out of the box and play mime.
We try not to be ourselves: oh, how we love that! We can do it for hours.
We feel good and nothing else exists now.
Until a voice, at first far off then closer and closer pushes its way into our laughter.
Then all at once, we are silent for fear of being discovered.
The hideaway turns into a crystal ball. Our hearts thump, we can hear footsteps coming near.
It’s our mom! She knows better than anyone where to find us.
She arrives, determined, but calm and smiling. When she enters the room, she says:
“Let’s put the covers back on your beds, it’s time to go to sleep.”
Tomorrow we will continue . . .
