Storie in Battigia – il Respiro del Mare

There is a place on the Island of Elba where the sea meets the land: the shoreline. A thin, ever-shifting line, where every wave brings something in and every undertow carries something away. In this space, the children of the fifth-grade classes at the Istituto Comprensivo G. Giusti in Marciana Marina and Marina di Campo learned to truly observe: to collect, catalogue, name. And then to invent. Twenty stories were born this way. Each one different, each authentic in the way only stories written by ten-year-olds can be. Storie in Battigia - Il Respiro del Mare brings together twenty original stories accompanied by illustrations created by the fifth-grade students of the Istituto Comprensivo G. Giusti in Marciana Marina and Marina di Campo.

The book grew out of the children's firsthand experience along the shoreline, that thin boundary line between sea and land where waves leave behind shells, weathered driftwood, natural fragments and small treasures to observe and interpret. Through observation, cataloguing and the discovery of what the sea gives back to the shore, the students turned their direct experience into stories, images and reflections.

The book is the result of the Blue Schools 2024–2025 project run by the Istituto Comprensivo G. Giusti, supported by Fondazione Acqua dell'Elba as part of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (UNESCO-IOC). An educational journey weaving together creative writing, art, environmental education and active citizenship. The pages of the book tell the story of the sea through the eyes of its youngest observers, offering a perspective made of curiosity, imagination and attention to the environment around us. Each story is an invitation to observe nature with greater awareness and to rediscover the deep bond between the Island of Elba, its sea and its new generations.