Product Description

One relentlessly hot summer, six children explore the scorched wheat-fields that enclose their tiny Italian village. When the gang find a dilapidated farmhouse, nine-year-old Michele Amitrano makes a discovery so momentous he dare not tell a soul. It is a secret that will force Michele to question everything and everyone around him.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13178 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-15
• Original language: Italian
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
'I'm Not Scared is an exquisite parable. Ammaniti's short staccato sentences effectively describe the isolation and simplicity of rural subsistence, while long passages of direct dialogue touchingly portray the children's naive perceptions.' Daily Telegraph

The Observer
Sucks you in like The Blair Witch Project.

Daily Telegraph
An exquisite parable.

Customer Reviews

Draws you in a like a witch to it's gingerbread house
Michele Amitrano is living the life of a normal nine year old boy, in his tiny village of four houses, until one day, whilst completing a bet, he stumbles on something so secret and so unbelievable, he has no choice but to keep it all to himself. A discovery that challenges his view of his family, his friends, and ultimately sends him riding his bike down a dusty trail of blackmail, hatred and murder.

I picked up this book in a special edition copy for 99p, making it the cheapest book ever that kept me awake until the following morning. Ammaniti's nostalgic and painfully accurate portrayal of childhood is set against a devastating and heart rendering story of the bitterness and corruption of the real world, and of a society willing to do anything for a better way of life.

The portrayal of this world seen through a child's eyes, a child so real he lives on in the reader's mind long after the book is put down, adds a chilling aspect of innocence to an otherwise dark story. Ammaniti leads the reader seamlessly from an idealistic world and in one moment buries them in confusion and terror.

An excellent read! Buy it, read it, and let it live in your memory, and your bookcase reading to beautifully chill you again and again.

An awesome read
I was prompted to buy I'm Not Scared after reading the review for the film (released 11/6/04) in The Times. Right from the outset the book grips the reader. The book is very fast paced and portrays a brutally honest account of a young boy's (Michele, 9) childhood and realisation of the evil in the world around him. The book has similarities to the Lord of the Flies, not least with the mounting of a chicken on a stick as a flag. However here it is not the children who have lost their innocence. I highly recommend this book!

a small, great book you won't forget
I am extremely pleased to see that this wonderful book has finally got its greatly deserved english translation. A literary sensation in Italy two years ago, Ammaniti's "I'm not scared" is a tale of an uspeakable crime, unfortunately still all too common in Italy: the kidnapping (for ransom) of a young kid from a rich family, his hiding, in inhumane conditions, in an abandoned shack somewhere in the wheat fields of Puglia. But it is also the tale of another kid, Michele, who during that summer will see his innocence and childhood smashed in the cruellest of ways, and will have to face moral dilemmas that go well beyond his years and his understanding.
While the originality and the power of the plot are striking, the real strength of the book lies, in my opinion, in the vivid descriptions that make places, emotions and events literally jump at you and envelop you in the torrid, claustrophobic, incomprehensible and frightening world that is Michele's in those hot summer days and nights. Ammaniti has an incredible talent for descriptions, but he also has an impressive 'eye' and 'ear' for childhood and this has to be one of the best books about childhood by and for adults that you read in years. A definite winner.