From the father of modern Italian children’s literature, a guide to fairytales and folk tales and their great advantages in teaching creative storytelling. A groundbreaking pedagogical work that is also a handbook for writers of all ages and kinds, The Grammar of Fantasy gives each of us a playful, practical path to finding our own voice through the power of storytelling. Full of ideas, glosses on fairytales, stories, and wide-ranging activities, including the fantastic binomial, this book changed how creative arts were taught in Italian schools. Gianni Rodari is widely regarded as the father of modern Italian children’s literature, but he is also remembered for his visionary pedagogy, and it is these two fields he combines in this revolutionary essay collection. Translated into English by acclaimed children’s historian Jack Zipes and illustrated for the first time ever by Matthew Forsythe, this edition of The Grammar of Fantasy is one to live with and return to for its humor, intelligence, and truly deep understanding of children. As translator and esteemed fairytale scholar Jack Zipes puts it, “Rodari grasped children’s need to play with life’s rules by using the grammar of their own imaginations. They must be encouraged to question, challenge, destroy, mock, eliminate, generate, and reproduce their own language and meanings through stories that will enable them to narrate their own lives.� “I hope this small book,� writes Rodari, “can be useful for all those people who believe it is necessary for the imagination to have a place in education; for all those who trust in the creativity of children; and for all those who know the liberating value of the word.�

A New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children's Book of 2022 Everyone knows how "Little Red Riding Hood" goes. But Grandpa keeps getting the story all wrong, with hilarious results! "Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Little Yellow Riding Hood-" "Not yellow! It's Red Riding Hood!" So begins the story of a grandpa playfully recounting the well-known fairytale-or his version, at least-to his granddaughter. Try as she might to get him back on track, Grandpa keeps on adding things to the mix, both outlandish and mundane! The end result is an unpredictable tale that comes alive as it's being told, born out of imaginative play and familial affection. This spirited picture book will surprise and delight from start to finish, while reminding readers that storytelling is not only a creative act of improvisation and interaction, but also a powerful pathway for connection and love. Telling Stories Wrong was written by Gianni Rodari, widely regarded as the father of modern Italian children's literature. It exemplifies his great respect for the intelligence of children and the kind of work he did as an educator, developing numerous games and exercises for children to engage and think beyond the status quo, imagining what happens after the end of a familiar story, or what possibilities open up when a new ingredient is introduced. This book is illustrated with great affection by the illustrious artist Beatrice Alemagna (Child of Glass), who counts Gianni Rodari as one of her "spiritual fathers."

Written by Gianni Rodari, the father of modern Italian children's literature, and charmingly illustrated by award-winning artist Beatrice Alemagna, this bright, sweet story reminds us what children are really like in the most essential and beautiful way! Little Giovanni is always daydreaming, always paying attention to the small miracles that lead him to lose track of the big picture. So even though he’s promised his mama to keep his eyes open on his walk, he can’t help but get distracted. Cheerful, carefree, and curious, Giovanni literally loses himself as he discovers the wide, wonderful world around him. Here, Rodari highlights the gorgeous way children give themselves over to their attention to the world by having Giovanni lose parts of himself as he walks along. Should his mama worry? No! Because: “That’s just the way children are.�Following her New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Telling Stories Wrong, Beatrice Alemagna returns to illustrate another of Gianni Rodari’s delightful stories from Telephone Tales. With a Batchelder Award winning translation by Antony Shugaar, this classic story from one of Italy’s most beloved and important authors of children’s literature asserts the power of flights of fancy and the value of childlike wonder.

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. Winner of the 2021 Batchelder Award and the 2020 Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’s English Translation Prize

Over 70 years ago, Italian author Gianni Rodari wrote "The Moon of Kyiv" to remind us of the humanity we all share. 100% of the net profit from the sale of this book will be donated to Save the Children fund for supporting children impacted by the conflict in Ukraine. In 1955, beloved Italian poet Gianni Rodari penned a nursery rhyme called "The Moon of Kyiv". It was a poem about our shared humanity - the poem reminding us that, no matter where we're from, or where we live, we all exist under the same moon. In the days following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, these lyrical words went viral in Italy: they became a call for peace. Six decades later, they resonate, and feel more relevant, than ever before. Now, for the very first time, the poem has been illustrated by the incredible Beatrice Alemagna, whose beautiful pictures match Rodari's words in hope, purity and power.

Factual as well as whimsical, and humorously illustrated, this is the first English-language publication of the answers given by one of Italy's greatest and most beloved children's authors to children's questions about animals, nature, technology, and culture. Gianni Rodari is widely regarded as the father of modern Italian children's literature. A firm believer in the great intelligence of children, he worked both as a teacher and a journalist. For a number of years, children across Italy sent their questions to his weekly newspaper column—questions Rodari answered, most inventively, with rhymes and little poems. Why didn't he reply with facts alone? Because he wanted to provoke children into thinking about questions, norms, and language itself. The Book of Whys collects a selection of these questions—from "Why does an elephant have a trunk?" to "Why does a car need fuel?" to "Why are we born?"—along with Rodari's answers, which beautifully serve to highlight the complexities, simplicities, and absurdities of our world. With a fresh translation from Antony Shugaar, who also translated Rodari's Telephone Tales (the 2021 Batchelder Award winner), and playful illustrations in colored pencils from artist JooHee Yoon (Beastly Verse; The Tiger Who Would Be King, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2015; Inside Out and Upside Down), The Book of Whys is a playful, surprising, and poetically informative book for all those who are curious about the world and ready to play with the ways things are.