Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature

Francesco Tullio Altan was born in Treviso in 1942. After attending school in Bologna, he studied architecture in Venice. In the late 1960s, he moved to Rome where he combined his interest in architecture with his love of drawing as a set designer, as well as working as a script writer. After a short period in Brazil working in the film industry, he returned to Italy in 1975. It was during his time in Brazil that Altan began producing books. Initially they were books for his daughter, Kika, and featured animals who behaved like children. The most popular of these was Timpa, a little white dog with red spots who still appears in regular cartoon strips.

Altan’s familiarity with the world of film making is particularly evident in the production of his many cartoon strips. Timpa has been turned into numerous different forms: short cartoons, a 26-minute film, a pop-up book, and coloring books. These cartoons are popular with preschool children who love the way that the little dog brings inanimate objects to life (the armchair reads him stories and he chats with his bedside lamp, Luisa). Timpa’s curiosity is usually about the here and now, but can also extend to serious scientific questions such as why the sun turns red at night. Another of Altan’s well-loved cartoon characters is Kamillo Krono, the small chameleon who keeps changing into the wrong colors. These cartoons are illustrated with bold colors and strong shapes that resemble children’s own drawings. Thick black outlines and bold single colors, blues, reds, greens and powerful pinks, dominate his palette.

Altan does not always write his own texts, and some of his most important works are illustrations of other people’s words. For adults, he has illustrated works such as The Nose by Gogol and Directions to Servants by Jonathan Swift. His works for children include a reinterpretation of the works of the former Hans Christian Andersen Award winner, Gianni Rodari; Favole Al Telefono [Fables on the Phone] is a short novel, which Altan enlivens with his full page colorful cartoons. Ci Vuole un Fiore [You Need a Flower] returns to Altan’s preschool audience. This board book designed for the smallest of hands is accompanied by a CD of the songs Altan has illustrated.

Altan has also written scripts for film and television. His works for adults are often satirical; his favorite cartoon strip character is Cipputi, a disenchanted communist factory worker. His cross-over works include an illustration of Louis Armstrong’s song What a Wonderful World.