Review: Bartali’s Bicycle, by Megan Hoyt, illustrated by Iacopo Bruno

Title: Bartali’s Bicycle – The True Story of Gino Bartali, Italy’s Secret Hero
Author: Megan Hoyt (with an afterword by Lisa Bartali)
Illustrator: Iacopo Bruno
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Year: 2021
Pages: 40 pages
Order: HarperCollins
What it is: The legend of Gino Bartali, saviour of Italy’s Jews, as told in a kids’ picture book (ages 4-8)
Strengths: The pictures?
Weaknesses: Just because it’s a kids’ book doesn’t mean we should give truth a hall pass

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.

Once upon a time, in a golden age when everything gleamed like the sun itself, from the curtains to the wallpaper, from the taps to the showers, once upon a time in this age of gold there lived in that glittering land across the Alps and below the Dolomites a hero. A secret hero. A secret hero named Gino Bartali.

Gino wasn’t what you could call a handsome hero. Gino had a big nose and Gino had short arms and Gino smoked so much that his skin was almost yellow and his breath smelled like an ash tray. But talk not of that, talk not of Gino’s flaws. Talk only of how good Gino was. How saintly good Gino really was.

The people loved and adored Gino, for Gino was a champion of the Grand Tourney. Of two Grand Tourneys in fact. The Grand Tourney of Italy and the Grand Tourney of France. And everywhere Gino went, he was recognised. His nose really was rather distinctive, standing out on his face like a mountain on the horizon, like one of those mountains on the horizon that he had climbed so fast when winning the Grand Tourney of Italy and when winning the Grand Tourney of France. And everywhere Gino went and was recognised he was declared a hero. But Gino said “No, no, no! Heroes are those who have suffered. I am just a cyclist.”

— No he did not!
— Who are you and what are you doing interrupting my story?
— I’m the poor adult who has to read this children’s book and tell other adults about it so they can decide whether to gift it to little Johnny or little Jane. And Gino Bartali did not go around telling people that he wasn’t a hero, not until after the Civil War legend had taken off and begun to grow in the telling.
— Oh yes he did! I read it on the internet!
— Right, yeah, if it’s on the internet then it must be true.
— Can I carry on now?
— If you must.

After Gino won the grand Tourney of France, the world started to change. Strange new ideas began to spread across the land beyond the Alps and beneath the Dolomites.

— Strange new ideas? Are you having a laugh? Mussolini had been in power for more than 15 years by the time Bartali won the Tour. Italy was well used to fascism’s ideas.
— I’m not talking to you! I’m talking to the children! Go away and let me continue!

Strange new ideas began to spread across the land beyond the Alps and beneath the Dolomites. Armies marched. Generals barked orders. Tanks belched out thick smoke onto the beautiful cobbled streets of this beautiful land of ice cream vendors and opera singers, this beautiful land of gondoliers in striped jerseys and priests dressed in black, this beautiful land where the pasta grows on trees and the rivers flow with the most beautiful sauces.

Megan Hoyt and Iacopo Bruno

And the strange new ideas became even stranger. A powerful leader said, “People will fall for a big lie more easily than a small one.” Then he told a giant lie to the whole world!

— A powerful leader? We’re just going to forget Italy’s homegrown liar, Mussolini, aren’t we, we’re going to forget how fascist Italy already was and go straight for Hitler? We’re just going to pretend Italy hadn’t been persecuting its Jews since 1938.
— Lalalalala! Can’t hear you!

Gino was shocked. Gino refused to believe the lie.

Soldiers flowed into Gino’s hometown. It seemed the war would never end.

— Really? You’ve just leaped from 1938 or ‘39 to 1943, the war seems to be going pretty quickly, actually. It’ll be over before the end of the next paragraph at this rate.

It seemed the war would never end. But Gino tried to keep training. He pedalled past historic cities with leaning towers and giant domed cathedrals. He pedalled past country villages with quaint cottages and rows of grapevines. He pedalled past assorted other stereotypes Americans love. And then he pedalled past soldiers pushing children onto giant trucks. This is not right, Gino thought. I must do something to help.

— Did he really now. Or was he told he had to help by the archbishop?
— I’m getting to that!

One day, Archbishop Elia Dalla Costa summoned Gino to the town cathedral. Gino listened to the archbishop. Gino decided to help. “Some medals are pinned to your soul, not your jacket,” he said.

— I suppose you read than on the internet too? A piece of fridge-magnet wisdom that wasn’t attributed to Bartali until his son wrote a book about him 20 years ago.
— You’re just a cynic! And a sceptic!

Megan Hoyt and Iacopo Bruno

Megan Hoyt and Iacopo Bruno

Gino helped the archbishop, smuggling forged identity documents in the hollow bars of his bicycle. But Gino wanted to do more.

— Allow me to summarise this bit. You do the Terontala train station thing, where he distracts the German guards so Jewish refugees could board trains without having their identity papers checked. And then you do the bit where he hides the Goldenberg family in his cellar, like he was Anne Frank’s landlord as well as Oskar Schindler. Except even Yad Vashem says that it wasn’t Bartali’s house the Goldenbergs were hidden in. Continue.

Like all strong young men, Gino was forced into the Italian militia. A soldier fighting for the enemy! How could he do such a thing?

— How indeed. He actually flunked the physical at the start of the war and had been assigned to the signal corps since then.

Gino put on his uniform and strolled into the Villa la Selva where prisoners were being held. He left with forty-nine English soldiers.

— You read that on the internet, didn’t you? Did you read Stefano Pivato saying there’s no evidence to support this story?
— He’s just a cynic and a sceptic too. And a total killjoy.

Iacopo Bruno

Megan Hoyt and Iacopo Bruno

Even though Gino saved the lives of more than eight hundred Jewish people during the war, he kept his story quiet for as long as he lived. “Good is something you do, not something to talk about,” he said.

— You really do love this fridge-magnet philosophy, don’t you? But if Bartali didn’t talk about the good he is alleged to have done, how come there’s all these people emerging from the woodwork over the last 20 years and telling anyone who’ll listen all the stories Bartali allegedly told them?
— I’ve got a whole page of sources for this book! A whole page! Everything I say can be found on the internet!
— Yes it can. Which I guess makes the pictures the only reason anyone would want to spend money on this book.

HarperCollins

[1] The Assisi network was created by the Bishop of Assisi, Giuseppe Nicolini, who put Aldo Brunacci in charge of its operation. Rufino Niccacci was one of the priests who was part of it. All three have been declared Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Niccacci in 1974, Nicolini and Brunacci in 1977. Brunacci’s description of Niccacci and The Assisi Underground can be found in Michele Sarfatti’s 2017 essay, ‘Did the Great Italian Cyclist Gino Bartali Actually Save Jews During the Holocaust? An Investigation.’ Sarfatti ends his essay by noting that “the history of false identity cards for clandestine Jews in Florence is filled with great humanity and tragic losses which do not need myths and demand the most profound respect.”

[2] Even some of those involved with Yad Vashem question the figure of the 800 Jews Bartali is credited with having saved. Speaking in a personal capacity, Sergio Della Pergola has said that he believes there is evidence for at least 30.

Some might question the evidence for those 30. Take, for instance, the story of Giulia Baquis, as told by Yad Vashem: Baquis and her family were being hidden in Lido di Camiore by two sisters. One day a cyclist arrived at the door with a package for the Baquis family. The older sister was away and the other, not recognising the cyclist, turned him away. After Italy was liberated a resistance member who arranged the hiding place for them told Baquis’s parents that the messenger had been Bartali.

The truth of the stories told abut Bartali matters. Just because this is a kids’ book doesn’t mean we should treat his life like it was a fairy tale.