Day 5: I don’t know about you but when I was little I loved getting to the fifth day of Christmas verse where my sister and I could exclaim at top volume “FIVE! GOLDEN! RINGS!” (If I’m being completely honest, I still enjoy doing just that) Well today we’re going to encourage you (nudge, nudge) to shout “LAMBERTO, LAMBERTO, LAMBERTO”! That’s right today is the day we shower you with copies of Gianni Rodari’s charming novel Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto for part of the 12 Days of Random House Library Marketing Giveaway.
Who can resist a book that’s been compared to The Little Prince and Shelf Awareness says it’s “like Pinocchio being written by Quentin Tarantino”. Enter our giveaway here now!
When we first meet Baron Lamberto (age ninety-three), he is very rich and very ill. He owns twenty-four banks and has been diagnosed with twenty-four serious ailments: only his butler Anselmo remembers them all.
On the advice of an Egyptian sage, Lamberto hires a group of servants to repeat his name over and over and over. It’s a recipe, he’s told, for eternal life…. surprisingly, it works.
Lamberto’s newfound youth, however, is put at risk when a terrorist group lays siege to the Baron’s villa on the island of San Giulio in the mountains near Lake Orta. The Baron’s army of bank directors are summoned to pay a huge ransom, and an international media spectacle is born as the bankers and Baron Lamberto negotiate with the bandits. Lamberto becomes the first casualty—but the celebrity funeral that follows becomes the first funeral in history with a happy ending…
Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto is an adroit, witty, and poignant reflection on what happens when tragedy strikes. Our beloved Lamberto eventually springs back against impossible odds. There are things, writes Rodari, “that only happen once.” In fact, “there are things that only happen in fairytales.
Check out more Lamberto news here.