Once upon a time there was a man who worked so hard and relentlessly that he had left his soul somewhere behind him. He wasn’t too bad without his soul - he slept, ate, worked, drove his car and even played tennis. Sometimes, however, he had the impression that everything around him had become flat, he seemed to be moving on the sheets of a math notebook, sheets with the same squares all over.

Giovannino has a passion for bicycles and longs for a real one. Yellow. Brand new. His father’s trying to make his wish come true, he finds an old bicycle frame and works hard to fix it. But what is old is ugly for Giovannino, who is in despair! Until a brand new bike comes out of his father's garage. The elegant rhymes by Matteo Pelliti, at his debut in children’s literature, go with astonishing drawings by Riccardo Guasco, a renown bicycles illustrator, to tell the love of children for riding adventures, a timeless love in spite of the most modern technologies. [Text in Italian]

That morning the cricket didn’t get up.
 Everything was the same as usual: the sun in the sky, the grass in the lawn, the water in the river. But that morning the cricket didn’t get up.
His friends are worried, they want to know if he’s sick, they try push him and soon a messy crowd gathers around him. Until one day, a special visitor comes to see the cricket: silence…

Antonella Capetti, author of Che bello!, is a primary school teacher. In 2013 she created Apedario blog, dedicated to her teaching practice and ideas, especially focused on how to learn to read and write using picture books. Apedario has quickly become a reference point for many teachers and parents. A scuola con gli albi starts considering reading and writing as the core of school life and goes much further. It is not meant to be a manual, but rather a notebook about the different ways in which we can read picture books.

I was six years old. Once, uncle Bernard came to see us. After dinner, my sisters and I started playing. Then they went to bed as they were younger than me, while I started jumping on the couch. After a while my uncle asked me "Are you hyperactive?” I didn’t understand and answered: "No, I'm Swiss." He almost fell off the chair laughing.

On the ground a mushroom grows, a donkey browses, a hare escapes; under the ground a seed sprouts, a mole digs, a frog sleeps... After the successful issue of Quando il sole si sveglia and Nel cielo nel mare, our third board-book about the natural world. 24 new pages of opposite and complementary items, with astounding illustrations by Philip Giordano and text by Giovanna Zoboli. [Text in Italian]

A garden can be very small, made of one vase plant only, but if you look closer, you might see it like a tall tree in a meadow. Or a garden can be so huge one might even get lost. Above all, what a garden needs to be there, is someone who takes care of it, someone’s eyes and hands and then soil, sun, water and plenty of time. Do you have all these things? If you do, then you’re ready: you will love it!

Black is a special colour: rich, shiny and elegant on one side; severe and solemn on the other. It is in great deal reproduced by charcoal drawing and it has been explored by artists in its thousand forms, expressions and potentials. Much more than any other colour, black is linked to writing, graphic design, photography and cinema. Text by Valentina Zucchi and illustrations by Francesca Zoboli show us the work by great artists, such as Andrea Verrocchio, Francisco Goya, Georges de La Tour and Franco Grignani. [Text in Italian]

At the dawn of humanity, people’s eyes rejoiced in front of green, the sign of Mother Earth's life, fertility and wealth. Even today, green gives energy, it has the power to relax, refresh, clean, heal. A new story of colours illustrated by Ángela León, a young and talented illustrator, who has her debut in Italy. [Text in Italian]