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…