Toon Tellegen’s hedgehog wants company but fears the open door
Adelphi publishes the fable about shyness on 27 October, translated into Italian by Laura Pignatti.
Toon Tellegen’s Il dilemma del riccio reaches Italian bookshops on 27 October in Adelphi’s Piccola Biblioteca series. Its hedgehog longs to throw a party and invite every animal, yet the wish turns into an extended chain of hesitation: he imagines visits, conversations and mishaps while fear of what may happen beyond the door takes over. The Dutch writer’s fable also speaks to adults, gently observing the distance between needing other people and fearing exposure. The 159-page Italian edition is translated by Laura Pignatti and illustrated by Annemarie van Haeringen. It is a spare story in which waiting becomes a way to describe shyness without treating it simply as weakness.