Telephone Tales
by Gianni Rodari (Author) Valerio Vidali (Illustrator)
Every night, at nine o'clock, 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 Rodari's Telephone Tales is composed of many stories--in 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, it's 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, it's 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 Italy's most important children's author of the 20th century. Newly re-illustrated by Italian artist Valerio Vidali (The Forest), Telephone Tales entertains, while questioning and imagining other worlds.
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School Library Journal
Gr 3-5--Accountant Mr. Bianchi promises his daughter that he will tell her a bedtime story every night. While he is traveling across Italy, he calls her at 9 p.m. on the nearest pay phone and tells her a short story. So begins a plethora of clever tales. There are a lot of stories to love in this Italian export. Rodari is a master storyteller; his imagination knows no bounds from runaway noses, buildings made of ice cream, magical carousels, and an elevator to the stars. Each story is thoughtful and well constructed as Rodari plays delightfully with different themes. In "The Country with the Un in the Front," war is "immediately unwaged." "The Young Crayfish" emphasizes being yourself, as the crayfish learns to walk forwards despite his family's judgment, and readers learn the strength of truth against injustice in "Giacomo of Crystal." The narration is distinctly Italian from the names of all the cities, characters, food, and expressions. Although there are some female characters, a majority of the entries center male characters, and strong female leadership is only really shown in "The Well at Cascina Piana," where women from 11 warring families band together to help a male character and as a result, save their families. Almost every human is depicted in the accompanying illustrations as having a pink hue to their skin. VERDICT Though not perfect, this could be used for storytelling and bedtime reading. For larger collections.--Rebecca Fitzgerald, Harrison P.L., NY
Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.Publishers Weekly
"Every evening--no matter where he was--at nine o'clock on the dot, Signor Bianchi put in a phone call to Varese and told his little girl a story." In the 70 brief stories told within this frame, the irrepressible Rodari plays with words, numbers ("eleventy thousand sporty-seven hundred and thirty-three"), time, and space. In bold shapes and bright colors, Vidali (The Forest) plays right along: his images read as an homage to Bruno Munari, who illustrated the first Italian edition in 1962. At times whimsical, absurd, and subversive, the stories carry readers along roads made of chocolate, under skies that rain Jordan almonds, and into children's private language. They also speak to today's urgent concerns--human connection, the injustice of inequality, and the dangers of authoritarianism. At every turn, Rodari remains emphatically on the side of the young, reminding readers that "the whole world already belongs to every child that comes into it.... They need only to roll up their sleeves, stretch out their hands, and take it for themselves." Numerous gatefold spreads and tipped-in pages add to the rich texture of this beautifully produced volume. Ages 8-12. (Sept.)
Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
The Italian Author Gianni Rodari wrote many beloved children's books and was awarded the prestigious Andersen Prize. But he was also an educator of paramount importance in Italy and an activist who understood the liberating power of the imagination. He is one of the twentieth century's greatest authors for children, and Italy's greatest. Influenced by French surrealism and linguistics, Rodari stressed the importance of poetic language, metaphor, made-up language, and play. At a time when schooling was all about factual knowledge, Rodari wrote The Grammar of Fantasy, a radically imaginative book about storytelling and play. He was a forerunner of writing techniques such as the "fantastic binomial" and the utopian, world engendering "what if...." The relevance of Rodari's works today lies in his poetics of imagination, his humanist yet challenging approach to reality, and his themes, such as war and peace, immigration, injustice, inequality, and liberty. Forty years after his death, Rodari's writing is as powerful and innovative as ever. He died in Rome in 1980.
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 Lopíz 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.
JUV010000 - Juvenile Fiction | Bedtime & Dreams
JUV038000 - Juvenile Fiction | Short Stories
