In Barriera, everyone’s fate is written in their blood. And you can’t change that.
Sixteen-year-old Yasin lives in Barriera, a tough neighbourhood on the outskirts of Turin. He’s caught between his first love and a brother who’s just been released from prison, between who he wants to be and who the world expects him to be. Malik, his brother, is trying to make a new start. When tragedy strikes on New Year’s Eve, Yasin’s world collapses. Can he still dream of freedom in a place where violence feels inherited and every label sticks to the skin?
A raw, powerful story of identity, anger, love and redemption.
A story by Book on a Tree
By the same author or illustrator
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The Night of the Fireflies
Can the power of first love overcome the barriers of time and space? A poignant story that blends powerful feelings with savage loss. Two alternating female voices until the final truth is revealed. Teresa and Diego grow up together in San Giovanni, a small town in the Italian countryside. They are inseparable—Diego is Teresa’s playmate, her confidant, the shoulder she…
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Count Dawn. The Book of Snow
Choose your future, before your future chooses you. In 2069, the future is already written — and it is controlled by APEX, the corporation that rules humanity through the VIVI: living silicon creatures capable of hijacking technology, emotions, and memory itself. The world survives inside sealed Oases. Clo, a boy who can glimpse fragments of what is yet to come,…
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160 Films (and Series) to Watch Before You’re 16 (and Even After)
A cross-generational book for teens, families, teachers, and film lovers of all ages: not just a guide, but a map to the movies that shape who we are — before sixteen, and long after. Cinema can open worlds, spark emotions, and shape how we see ourselves. Award-winning author and screenwriter Manlio Castagna has created a guide to 160 essential films…
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Dedalo & Dharma
It’s a summer evening when, without even realizing it, Dharma comes out of the cinema screen to escape certain death and meet that very spectator, Dedalo, who comes to the Kazan Cinema every single day to see her. Dedalo is thirteen and has an unbridled passion for films and Dharma, who’s the same age, is a character who escaped a destiny which,…
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Goodwill
One stormy night, a boy returns from the forest. But he is not alone. In November 1851, a caravan of settlers reached the desolate shores of what would become Seattle. They were exhausted, wet and full of hope. Among them were Jeanette and Henry Goodwill, who a few days after their arrival welcomed the birth of their first child: Ambrosius. But…
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The Evil Twenty
What would the stories we love be without their villains? They give weight to the shadows of the human soul. They let us feel contrast, complexity, danger—and sometimes, even recognition. In The Evil Twenty, Manlio Castagna invites readers on a journey into the minds of twenty of the greatest villains of all time, in twenty powerful short stories that explore…
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Snot & Splash
What if one day all the holes disappeared from the world? Would doughnuts still be doughnuts? How would you open a door without a keyhole? The residents of Elsewhere have a serious problem: someone is stealing all the holes. Keyholes, doughnuts, birdboxes… nothing is safe. And to make things worse, the weather has gone completely mad—garbage is falling from the sky.…
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Darkmare
A surreal night. A haunted amusement park. One boy’s quest to save a dream. Twelve-year-old Guido Anselmo lives for cinema. But when he discovers the mysterious biography of Klaus Voynik — a cursed filmmaker who died under strange circumstances — and realises the final chapter is missing, he’s determined to uncover the truth. His search leads him to an abandoned film studio-turned-amusement…
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Draconis Chronicon
Five children on a journey. A legendary dragon. An epic adventure in a magical Middle Ages. Salerno, 1066. A preacher wanders the streets announcing the end of the world: “The Beast is stirring again! Fear the dragon, because the day of the eclipse is near!” The young Barliario doesn’t pay attention to those words of doom, but that same evening his…
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Mysteries of Summer
Six mysteries. One season where mystery never takes a break. Six original summer stories by Italian acclaimed authors. A girl haunted by a ghost who might be herself. A cursed necklace passed from hand to hand. A school trip gone terrifyingly wrong… Each tale is a standalone mystery—spine-chilling, elegant, or surreal—set in the inescapable heat of the Italian summer. A fresh,…
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We Are Fire
When love burns, nothing is safe, not even the friendships we thought would last forever. A heady, sun-drenched summer in Puglia. A legendary friendship. A girl who changes everything. Charming and reckless, Nicolas is used to getting what he wants. His quieter best friend, Alex, has always followed him. But when they both fall for the same girl, Mia, their loyalty is…
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The Night of the Malombre
March 2, 1944. A freight train packed with desperate passengers departs Naples in the dead of night, heading for the Lucanian countryside, where food might still be found. On board are hundreds of civilians: smugglers, mothers, soldiers, children, and three teens who don’t know each other — yet. Brando, a boy forced to grow up too soon, climbs aboard to find…
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Celeste’s War
Autumn 1944. In the woods of the Langhe, twelve-year-old Celeste and his little sister Flora, five, are playing Training, a survival game to prepare for the arrival of the enemy – and the enemy, they have always been taught, are the rebels who have gone up into the hills: the partisans. But nothing can prepare them for what they find…
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Try Not To Sleep
Young and bold, Baladine is the brilliant mind behind De Profundis, a podcast that each week captivates a wide audience of true crime and horror enthusiasts, recounting real and terrifying stories “straight from the heart of darkness”. But now she’s stuck in a creative block that threatens to drag her back into the abyss she fought so hard to escape.…
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The Beasts
Three deadbeat robbers with animal nicknames, Lynx, Buzzard and Toad, masked with rough cotton sacks slung over their heads, take shelter in the former Boeri sanitorium in Tresigallo. A coincidence leads them to cross paths with a class of Ferrara high school students on a trip to the old hospital and so they decide to take them hostage. The Boeri,…
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No One Is Coming To Get You
During a school trip to the ruins of Herculaneum, Calista—Cali—finds a scrap of paper hidden in a crack in the wall. The message is written in clumsy handwriting: a desperate cry for help, a whisper of loneliness. She replies, slipping a note back into the wall. And just like that, the dialogue begins. The person — or thing — on the…
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Read Again Nanà
Magnificent illustrations accompany this intense story about the power of words with delicate strokes, which tells even the youngest children how each of us can always make a difference. There is a small village at the top of the mountains, far from everything, living in peace and harmony with nature. The only contact with the world is the newspapers, which…
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Of Fire and Silk
In the summer of 2024, Lianna arrives in Solferino to visit her mother’s grave, where an encounter with Asé, the mysterious cemetery guardian, opens the door to a second beginning. In the summer of 1858, two siblings, Sante and Altea, and Visio, ‘reborn’ after a near-fatal encounter, experience love and friendship against the backdrop of one of Italy’s bloodiest battles.…
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The Mysteries of Mercurio 3 – Caravaggio: Love Wins All
An old man who lives in the top of a tower in the heart of Florence challenges three friends to a dangerous mission: to discover and solve the hidden mysteries of the art world! To Nina, Caravaggio is the greatest painter of all. And she can hardly believe her eyes when she, Lori and Jamal come across the great maestro…




















