If Michelangelo blocks of marble already contained I Prigioni that the sculptor later digged out, the materials protagonists of Tales of stone and more had already inside them the artworks that the man will take out and the tale that will make of him an artist. The young readers of Tales of stones and more find out materials as the artists of our century have already done - Anselmo, Penone, Pistoletto, Merz, Kounellis - who bring to the extreme limit the sensitivity that makes them catch "the artistic "inside the substance and inside the shape, before the human agency. In Quarzo microcosmos, so close to the children's one, stones can think, but their thinking is not as fast as their becoming sand; growing trees destroy the skyscrapers' order; clothes thrown in the room becomes a rainbow; and all the tales connect one thing to the other as in a kind of an illustrated Mille e una notte of art materials. The book is the english edition of Storie di pietra e d'altro by Guido Quarzo, published in the same series in 1997.

Guido Quarzo, born in Torino 1948, winner of the Andersen Baia delle Favole Prize in 1995 as best author, is primary school teacher and wrote nursery rhymes, novels, tales for children among which Seconda storia del Principe Faccia da Maiale, L'ultimo lupo mannaro in città, Comefuché, Il viaggio dell'Orca Zoppa, Sogno disegno matita di legno, Luì and the art of going into the woods (first book of the series hopefulmonster La favola dell'arte), and theatre texts played in schools and theatres of Torino.