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About Telephone Tales
Product Description 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. From 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., NYα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. Review "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 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." -STARRED REVIEW, Publishers' Weekly "The book itself is a thing of beauty, with tantalizing, full-colour illustrations by Valerio Vidali over double-page, fold-out spreads. Antony Shugaar devises parallels to Rodari’s exuberantly inventive language and finds an equivalent to the rhythms of his prose. For readers of all ages, this book is like education on planet Blih, where, we are told, “knowledge is sold in bottles, in drinkable form. History is a red liquid that resembles Grenadine, geography is a minty green drink”, and the sheer delight of storytelling flows in a
