Tito is twelve years old, and while his parents study the mysteries of the Universe, he tries to grasp earthly truths. Sometimes it is not easy. After all, even his mathematical mind cannot always organize the chaos that reigns around him. Since Tito's mom flew away on the «New Voyager» to distant stars, Tito's dad sits for days on end, buried in a book, not noticing anything around him. Their world has plunged into a thick silence, interrupted only by the antics of Vika, Tito's friend, and Grandma Irma's lasagna.

To shake Tito's dad and draw his attention to the world around, Vika secretly signs him up for a chess tournament, even though he not only doesn't know how to play but also doesn't leave the house. To help Tito and Vika comes their eccentric neighbor Grandpa Mechanic – a jack-of-all-trades, resembling Einstein and able to fix anything «in 38 seconds». But as the tournament approaches, it becomes clear: no one is ready to tell Tito the truth about what really happened to his mom.

For the novel «Checkmate among the stars», Alessandro Barbaglia was awarded the National Strega Ragazze e Ragazzi Prize. This book is not about chess as a battle but about the ability to see life as a large chess game, where even after the heaviest loss, one can find the right move. Through the metaphor of the starry sky and the black-and-white squares, Alessandro Barbaglia tells a story about friendship, growing up, and the courage needed not to win but simply to keep living.