In the company of Fata Lina

This article examines how contemporary Italian children’s writers and illustrators engage with creative reimaginings of canonical fairy tales to challenge entrenched gender stereotypes and address the pervasive social plague of violence against women. Focusing on Guia Risari’s La strana storia di Cappuccetto Blu , illustrated by Clémence Pollet, and Lorenzo Naia’s Fiabe in rosso , illustrated by Roberta Rossetti, I explore how their visual and narrative strategies create space for empathic reflection on these pressing issues. Drawing on feminist fairy-tale scholarship and picturebook theory, the analysis shows how these works complicate the gendered predator–prey dynamic embedded in classic fairy tales. By placing them in conversation with the pioneering episode ‘Il segreto di Fata Lina’ from the acclaimed Italian children’s television programme La Melevisione , these picture books are interpreted as part of a broader cultural effort to cultivate emotional literacy and gender awareness in young readers, aiming to support the development of healthy relationships and contribute to the early prevention of gender-based violence. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .