We used to be afraid of the forest. It was the forest of the wolf, the ogre, the dark. It was the place where you could get lost.... From the time the character entered the woods we began to be afraid, we knew something could happen, something would happen.
Instead, one felt safe among the houses, in the city, in the neighborhood. This was the place where people looked for each other among comrades, found each other to play together. Those were our places there, the ones to hide, the ones to organize the gang, to play mom, to bury the treasure. Within a few decades, everything changed.
There was a tremendous, rapid, total transformation: on the one hand, the city has lost its characteristics, it has become dangerous and treacherous; on the other arose the greens, environmentalists, animal rights activists and The forest has become beautiful, bright, the object of dreams and desire; the city has become ugly, gray, aggressive, dangerous, monstrous.
- Excerpt from the book "The City of Children"

Who is Francesco?

Francesco Tonucci is a recognized pedagogist and research associate at the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology of the National Research Council of Italy.

He has devoted much of his professional life to researching child development, analyzing the child’s thinking, his interaction with the world, abilities, needs and educational requirements.

He is the creator of the international project The City of Children, which is widespread in both Europe and Latin America

He is a tireless defender of the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
.

In honor of his long career and his contributions to education and innovation, he has received several international awards, such as several honorary doctorates from Spanish and Latin American universities, as well as the
Unicef award from the Spanish Committee for the year 2019.
.

Under the pseudonym FRATO, Francesco Tonucci signs satirical cartoons on the themes of education, the city, play, and childhood that invite questioning of the system and commitment to the transformation of our society.

He has published dozens of titles, many of which have been translated into various languages.

Francis on wikipediaPersonal site and Facebook page (maintained by volunteers of this association and in perpetual “work in progress”)

Who is Frato?

Frato is the alter ego of Francis, the cartoonist.

As early as 1990, the first exhibition of Frato’s drawings called“Fratografie” was organized in Turin, which in 1991 was exhibited in Fano at the first event of the project “The City of Children.”

Since that time Frato has never stopped drawing.

In 2016, the exhibition “
Imagining Education: 50 Years with Frato
” in the Granada Science Museum.

The exhibition presented a journey through Francesco Tonucci’s life and living with original drawings, personal objects and photographs, books, participatory and audiovisual proposals inviting us to imagine education.

In the pages of this site you can find numerous cartoons and drawings by Frato.