Elisa Giordano and the boom of “Socrates the elf”: “I invented a podcast to respond to my children’s anxieties”

«Mamma, tell us a story.” All children, sooner or later, ask this. But if your mother, who talks, talks, talks for work, no longer has a voice at the end of the day, what do you do? The life-saving solution of Elisa Giordano, 44, a communications expert, was to record her voice. «At first I read their favorite stories, The Gruffalo, The Wolf Who Changed Color... We were in a pandemic, it was 2020, they were 3 and 5, and I was at a crossroads: either I disavowed all the teachings I had passed on to my children, and turned on the TV, or I tried to be with them in another way. So I sat with them, voiceless, I pressed «play» and we listened to my voice, as I had always done as a child with the “storyteller”: my parents had a restaurant and in the evening I made do with that». Then one day Nina comes home from dance school and tells me: “You have to invent the stories of the elf”, and explains to me the Anglo-Saxon tradition of the “Elf on the shelf”, which I didn’t know: an elf, helper of Santa Claus, who during the Advent period it is in homes (“on the shelf”, literally) and at night he returns to the North Pole to tell Santa Claus how the child who lives in that house behaves.” From that moment the home podcast that collects fairy tales transforms, and little by little Elisa begins to invent stories. The podcast, with the return to “normal” life, was then recorded over 650 thousand downloads with an average of around 20 thousand plays per month. Although it only came to life in December, with new episodes of the elf’s stories.

Now, of the 177 recorded episodes, a selection makes up The Advent Book of the elf Socrates (Gallucci), just released and already in reprint, while the new 24 adventures of the podcast will arrive from 1 December The elf Socratesproduced by Free Stories. Did you expect this success?
“Not exactly. It all really started from a very concrete need and from the idea of ​​sharing the same problems with other parents. When the numbers grew, some publishers became interested.”
How do you explain those numbers?
«I think there is a lot of desire for positivity. In general, with all the negative news that bombards us, and especially for children, who today are subjected to crazy performance anxiety and feel constantly judged.”
What kind of problems did he share with other parents?
«Among the fairy tales I recorded and the stories of the elf Socrates there was also the phase of “Stories without fear”, which took inspiration from the children’s thoughts, ideas and problems, keeping only fear out. To give an example, my daughter had crazy fits of anger after the lockdown, when she returned to school. The psychologist at the listening desk at her school told us: you have to make her visualize an animal, a character, and ask her: what color does it have? What does he want to do? She will give you answers. I thought: come on, my daughter is smart, she’ll tell me that there’s no one there and that it’s just her who’s pissed off. Instead, in a complete fit of rage, instead of relating to her in the usual way, I asked her: who is here with you? And she played along: there’s a dinosaur, it’s green and it wants to eat everyone, she tells me. We started to let out our anger, and together we wrote a nursery rhyme about Dino Sauro that she recited every time her anger overwhelmed her. And it served as an exercise, we wrote a few stories to exorcise their fears.”
Then came the elf Socrates: what characteristics does he have?
«He’s an elf who comes from Santa Claus’ town, but he doesn’t have much to do with theelf on the shelfwho has a judging and somewhat spy role, which I didn’t like very much. I wanted to tone down that aspect, plus I didn’t like the elf, he looked like Pinocchio with a blunt nose, so I’m looking for a replacement at home. I’m looking for a stuffed animal: there were only some soft toys of animals and Socrates, which the writer Chiara Zocchi had given me. I liked him straight away: partly because with the white beard he looks a bit like Santa Claus, partly because I could use his aphorisms, simplified, as pearls of wisdom, partly because “I know I don’t know” is also a that’s my motto: I really feel totally unprepared.”
How do the episodes come about?
«Socrates listens to the children and their problems, from the basketball game gone wrong to the aunt who is losing her memory, then he transports them to Santa’s kingdom where a similar thing happened, and obviously in the end there is a happy ending. It helps them find a solution, or take a new look at a problem. There is no psychology, no real philosophy, it’s just common sense.”
So for three years you only updated the podcast in December?
«Yes, I have my job and I wasn’t following him. I only promoted it on my social media in the weeks before Christmas, to say that the new episodes were coming out. But then their parents started writing to me, all year round. And maybe in the summer they asked me about episodes set at the seaside, because it bothered them that the neighbor from the beach umbrella saw their children listening to stories set at Christmas.”
So it’s been Christmas in his house for three years.
“Exactly”.
Do your children still listen?
«They still appreciate them. I initially said: now the book is coming out, and then the new podcast, done in a professional way… Then that’s it. But they had hysterics because they became attached to the character. After all, the podcast is growing together with them, maybe a 4 year old listens to it and loves it, but an 8 year old can also appreciate other nuances. In one of the last episodes, for example, there is the question: does Santa Claus exist? The answer has multiple levels, so as not to undermine the magic of the younger child and at the same time to manage the doubts of the older one.”
The question we’re all asking ourselves: when will the Socrates elf doll arrive in stores?
“Eh, it’s an idea, we’re thinking about it.”

Sunday 1st at 4.30pm at the Cesare Pavese Foundation Santo Stefano Belbo presentation of
book and podcast together with Storielibere

Monday 2nd at 5pm at the Readers’ Club Turin together with Rossana de Michele of Storielibere.fm

Friday 13th at 6.30pm meeting and presentation at FuoriLuogo Asti

Saturday 14th at 5pm readings between Christmas shopping in the Urban a concept store Bra

Thursday 19th at 5pm at the Library Sunrise creative writing workshop with the children of
Primary together with the elf Socrates