"Orano the ugly" The story of a neglected fish badly wanting to change his life...
...and "as always, as he appears, chaos takes place"... The most remote crevices of a far away rocky island provide the setting for the adventures that will change forever the destiny of Orano the scorpion fish and his friends.

"Orano the ugly" is one of the children's stories by Luigi Mantovani that were first published as a bilingual version in Italian and French. The author's intention is to regain a narrative spirit of "beatifying innocence" as underlines the original title "favole di beata innoncenza" and rediscover the pleasure of reading for and with children.

Leaving his native Italy, Luigi Mantovani for many years has lived and worked all over Europe as well as in Latin America. At present he inhabits the ancient Presbytère in a small village in Brittany where he organizes exhibitions of international artists. His professional association with music and art naturally affected his work as a writer. For the illustrations of his stories he found an inspired collaborator in French painter Sylvie Serre who also created the images for
"Orano the ugly". But artistic collaboration went further, including also musicians and actors, which led to some theatrical live performances based on the stories, in Italy in 2010.

Mantovani's projects for children are always aimed at inspiring fantasy, at stimulating artistic awareness and creativity. Bringing children in touch with art through a visual interpretation of a story is also the means of encouraging them to let their imagination use its own wings. This, too, has been achieved by various alliances with school projects in Brittany, one of them resulting in the publishing of "Les Z’animômes et l'école au logis", a book on ecology created by children of the Louise Briand school in Broons under the tutorship of teacher / writer Bernard Le Guével.

The latest project is the publication of four new stories illustrated by Virginie Lebreton dedicated to the so called “pest animals”. The four titles are: Olivia the mole, Ziggy the fox, Totem and Manitou and Max and the wild boars and are currently available in French and Italian language.