Every night, at nine oclock, wherever he is, Mr. Bianchi, an accountant who often has to travel for work, calls his daughter and tells her a bedtime story. But since it's still the 20th century world of pay phones, each story has to be told in the time that a single coin will buy. Reminiscent of Scheherazade and One Thousand and One Nights, Gianni Rodaris Telephone Tales is composed of many storiesin fact, seventy short stories, with one for each phone call. Each story is set in a different place and a different time, with unconventional characters and a wonderful mix of reality and fantasy. One night, its a carousel so beloved by children that an old man finally sneaks on to understand why, and as he sails above the world, he does. Or, its a land filled with butter men, roads paved with chocolate, or a young shrimp who has the courage to do things in a different way from what he's supposed to do. Awarded the Hans Christian Anderson Award in 1970, Gianni Rodari is widely considered to be Italys most important childrens author of the 20th century. Newly re-illustrated by Italian artist Valerio Vidali (The Forest), Telephone Tales entertains, while questioning and imagining other worlds.Winner ofthe 2021 Batchelder Award and the 2020 Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairss English Translation Prize

 

 

This book is the winner of numerous awards

This book has been graded for interest at 8-12 years.

There are 212 pages in this book.

This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+).

This book was published in 2020 by Enchanted Lion Books .

Alix Barzelay has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence and teaches children creative writing. This is her first children's book. Jennifer Uman is a self-taught painter and illustrator and Valerio Vidali is an Italian illustrator. Leonardo Patrignani was born in Moncalieri, Italy, in 1980. A songwriter, voice actor, and Stephen King fan, he has been writing since the age of six. Multiversum is his first book, and rights to the novel have been sold in eighteen countries. Antony Shugaar is a writer and literary translator working from Italian and French. He has published articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe in recent years. He is an editor-at-large for the journal Asymptote and is currently at work on a book about translation for the University of Virginia Press. Gianni Rodari (1920-1980) is widely considered to the most influential Italian children's author of the 20th century. Despite winning the Hans Christian Anderson Award in 1970, Rodari has rarely been translated into English. Valerio Vidali is an Italian illustrator of children's books. His book Jemmy Button (Templar/Candlewick, 2013), co-authored with Jennifer Uman, was a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2013. His book The Forest, co-illustrated with Violeta Lopiz was published by Enchanted Lion in 2018. Antony Shugaar is a writer and translator, working out of Italian and French. He once interviewed the creator of Topo Gigio.