Il giro del ’44

Giro d’Italia, June 1940. Martino follows the tour with his grandpa and his best friend: they all support Gino Bartali but there’s a young man who seems to threaten him, Fausto Coppi, who’s going to win his first tour. Martino, though, has nothing to cheer for, because the day after the end of the Giro Italy enters the war. Four years later he and his family are displaced in the countryside where there’s nothing to do. Luckily he got his bike. But that gets stolen by a mean girl who looks like the boss of a local gang. Without stopping dreaming about his own Giro d’Italia, Martino will get closer to this strange girl, experience death and war and live some of the darkest pages of Italian history. Nicola Cinquetti wrote a strong novel about war and life.