Pinocchio a personalised book with your child as the hero

Once upon a time, in a little Italian town, there lived an old woodcarver called Geppetto. He was poor and he lived alone, and all winter long he worked on a puppet carved from a very special piece of wood. Geppetto sanded it smooth, painted on two round eyes and a little red mouth, and gave it a short, neat nose.

"I'll call you Pinocchio," he said.

The moment he said the name, the puppet's eyes blinked. Its mouth twitched. Then it sat up, jumped down from the workbench and danced round the workshop on its wooden legs.

"Hello, Father!" cried Pinocchio.

Geppetto laughed and cried at the same time, and he hugged the little puppet tightly. "My son," he said. "My very own boy."

Pinocchio was full of mischief. He pulled faces and knocked things over and ran out into the street without his hat. But Geppetto loved him dearly, and he wanted him to go to school like all the other children. So he took off his only warm coat, went out into the snow and sold it, and came back with a brand-new spelling book.

"Where is your coat, Father?" asked Pinocchio.

"I was too warm," said Geppetto, though he was shivering.

Pinocchio understood, and he threw his arms round Geppetto's neck. "I'll go to school every day," he promised. "I'll learn to read and write, and I'll be the best boy in the world."

The next morning Pinocchio set off for school with the spelling book under his arm. But on the way he heard music: fifes and drums and laughter, coming from a field beside the road. And there at the roadside sat a fox and a cat, both very smartly dressed and both smiling.

"Good morning, young sir!" said the fox. "Why go to boring old school, when there's a fair just over there?"

"With a puppet show!" purred the cat. "A boy like you could be the star of it."

Pinocchio hesitated. Then he said, "Just for a little while," and off he went with them.

The fair was wonderful, all flags and sweets and spinning wheels, and Pinocchio was so dazzled that he swapped his new spelling book for a bag of sugared almonds. But the fox and the cat led Pinocchio straight to the puppet show, where a big showman with a black beard grabbed him, hung him up on strings and made him dance on the stage for a paying crowd. Pinocchio kicked and wriggled, but he could not get himself down. And the fox and the cat took their share of the money and slipped away.

That night, when the show was over, a kind fairy with turquoise hair found Pinocchio still dangling on his strings, crying. She cut him free and sat him down beside her.

"What happened to you?" she asked gently. "And where is your spelling book?"

Pinocchio did not want to admit what he had done with it.

"I lost it," he said.

And at once his nose grew longer.

"Where did you lose it?" asked the fairy.

"In... in the woods," said Pinocchio. "A big wolf chased me."

His nose grew longer still, so long that it poked out of the window.

"Little lies," said the fairy, "have a way of showing, right in the middle of your face."

Pinocchio went red all over. "I swapped it for sweets," he whispered. "I went to the fair instead of school."

And with that, his nose shrank back to its proper size.

But Pinocchio still had a lesson to learn. He meant to go home to Geppetto, but the fair was always there by the road, with its music and its sweets, and every day he told himself, "Just one more day." There were no lessons at the fair and no rules, nothing but playing from morning till night. Then one morning he woke up with an itchy head, and when he looked in a puddle, he saw a pair of long, grey, furry donkey ears sticking up out of his hair.

Pinocchio ran all the way home with his hands over his ears. But the workshop was empty and cold. A neighbour told him that Geppetto had gone looking for him everywhere, and at last had taken a little boat out to sea, in case Pinocchio had been carried off over the water.

So Pinocchio went down to the shore with a lantern, and he walked the whole shoreline, calling, "Father! Father!" But no one answered except the gulls.

Then, far out at sea, a wave the size of a house came rolling in, and up from underneath it rose an enormous whale. It opened its huge mouth, and in one gulp Pinocchio was swept inside, lantern and all.

It was very dark in the whale's belly, and it smelt strongly of fish. But far away, Pinocchio could see a tiny light. He made his way towards it, and there, sitting at a little table with a candle, was Geppetto.

"Father!" cried Pinocchio.

"My boy!" cried Geppetto, and they hugged and hugged.

Then Pinocchio told Geppetto everything: the fox and the cat, the fair, the strings, the spelling book and the donkey ears. He told the plain truth, every bit of it, and his nose stayed exactly the right size. And as he finished, the donkey ears shrank away to nothing.

"Now," said Pinocchio, "we have to get out of here. And I have a plan."

He took Geppetto's candle and held it up towards the roof of the whale's mouth, where the whale's great nose must be. The smoke curled up, and up, and the whale began to twitch. Then to wriggle. And then, with a sneeze that shook the whole sea, it blew them both out in a great white spout of water.

Down they splashed, and Pinocchio, being made of wood, floated like a cork. Geppetto held on to him, and together they paddled towards the lights of the shore.

They reached home at last, wet and tired and happy. Pinocchio lit the fire, made Geppetto a hot drink and wrapped him up in a blanket. The next morning he went to school, and he went the next day, and the day after that. He learnt to read and write, and he worked hard and helped Geppetto in the workshop.

One night, when Geppetto had fallen asleep by the fire, a soft blue light filled the workshop, and there stood the Blue Fairy, smiling.

"Pinocchio," she said, "you told the truth when it was hard. You were brave inside the whale, and you have looked after your father with all your heart. A boy like that deserves to be a real boy."

She touched him gently with her wand, and Pinocchio felt something strange and warm run all the way from his toes to the top of his head. His wooden arms grew soft. His wooden cheeks grew pink. He could feel his own heart beating.

In the morning Geppetto woke to find a real little boy laughing beside his chair. Sitting on the bench was an old wooden puppet, with its arms and legs folded, as if it were having a rest.

"Father!" cried the boy. "Look at me!"

Geppetto hugged him and hugged him, and cried for joy. And from that day on, Pinocchio was a real boy, who always told the truth, and whose nose stayed exactly the right size.