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.

“One looked like a dinosaur. Another one looked like a anteater. Another one a big lizard or a crocodile. They are not just figures or signes amomg the stars. They are living creatures that move up in the sky – I said – the Universe is full of dinosaurs, kites, lizards and lions, men with arrows and rhinos”.

Have you ever looked at the sky discovering stars and constellations in courious shapes and wondering maybe someone else is doing the same on the other side?

From the synergy between Marosia Castaldi’s words and Mario Merz’s images, a tender fable telling about a world made of imagination that is inside everyone, told through a swift language that goes with the colours and shapes of Art.

La favola dell’arte, or a fabulous way of entering the world of art. The art of writing and the art of the figure in a close synergy at the service of fun and learning.

Mario Merz (Milan 1925-2003) was one of the leading exponents of Arte Povera. His works have been shown in permanent collections of the most important and prestigious museums all over the world: from Guggenheim in New York to the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Los Angeles, from Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to Nationalgalerie in Berlin, from Israel Museum in Jerusalem to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He received the Japanese Imperial Praemium for sculpture on November 2003.

Marosia Castaldi (Naples 1951 - Milan 2019) has studied philosophy and art. She has published narrative works, Abbastanza prossimo (Tam Tam 1986, finalist at Mondello Prize 1986), Casa idiota (Tringale 1990), Piccoli paesaggi (Anterem 1993) and novels, La Montagna (Campanotto 1991), Ritratto di Dora (Loggia dè Lanzi 1994, finalist at Palazzo al Bosco Prize 1992), Fermata km 501 (Tranchida 1997), Per quante vite (Feltrinelli 1999, finalist at Premio Bergamo 2000 and at Premio Chianti 2000).

The Belgian artist Panamarenko is described by Nico Orengo as the toy maker from Antwerp because of the ludic and experimental peculiarity of a great many of his works.
The character of the children rhyme is Panamarenko/Pepto Bismo, a sculpture of the artist and a flying little man who, after leaving his studio in Antwerp, allows himself a journey by flight and by sea. Then he is fished out for being exhibited at the Biennale of Venice. But Pepto Bismo has a free mood-attitude and, on board of a white improbable airship, he will run away to come back to the stillness of the countryside, after visiting Giotto at the Cappella degli Scrovegni, where he will test new “Unidentified Flying Objects”.

Nico Orengo (Turin, 1944-2009), has written, among others, A-ulì-ulè. Filastrocche, conte, ninnenanne, (Einaudi, Torino, 1972) and Spiaggia, sdraio e ombrellone (Einaudi, Torino, 1999), Dogana d’amore, (Rizzoli, Milano, 1987), poems like Cartoline di mare (Einaudi, Torino, 1984), Terre blu (Melangolo, 2000), a touching and philosophical fairy tale for adults with the title L’allodola e il cinghiale (Einaudi, Torino, 2001), illustrated by Luigi Mainolfi, and the much praised novel La curva del latte (Einaudi, Torino, 2002) about the political and cultural changes of the late 1950s.

Panamarenko (Antwerp, 1940 - Brakel, 2003), artist and inventor, he was one of the most relevant personalities of the Belgian panorama in the 70s. Between ’62 and ’64 he experiments, together with Hugo Heyrman, with new materials, chiefly polyesters, which enabled the most varied of objects to be made. Prolific, visionary, experimental, Panamarenko has created an incredible set of objects with which “to play”, in which Utopya plays an important role. His first, real “machines” such as Prova-Car, a white metal model of a futuristic racing car, or the human-propulsion Airship (also called Six-bladed Helicopter) as well as the flying machines he was to build later, are the superbe result of an alchemy made of sofisticated calculations and archaic construction which evoke the poetic, epic dimension of human flight, lost since Leonardo da Vinci, and restore the nostalgic image of the pioneer, of adventure and exploration. 

The story tells of a teacher, Miss Pizzi, who took the children of the Terza C class in the Kingdom of Silence - a wood at the border of the city - and lost everybody there. Then the journalists, soldiers and policemen came, but nor them and nor the town mayor could make the children come back from the Silent Wood. Luì, a crazy child who stands for hours under the rain and listens to the leaves speaking, will solve the situation going into the wood simply armed of his imagination, catching shapes and colours and the armony that they produce in Art, a music that shed into the hole wood and made the children follow it and get out of the Silent labyrinth.

The words by Guido Quarzo let the children live landscapes of sounds, shapes and colours, suggested by the works by Luigi Mainolfi, things that would like to become nature in spite of adverse temptations.

Luigi Mainolfi, born at Rotondi (AV) in 1948, he completed his studies at the Accademia di Napoli, gaining a diploma in painting. In the Seventies, he moved to Turin, where he taught at an arts-based high school. From 1979, with the realisation of the Bell, he took a determined step towards a rebirth of sculpture in the panorama of contemporary art. He makes his sculptures using terracotta, wood, bronze and other metals. Blending nature and artifice, and so creating ambiguous, surprising crosses; fabulous monsters able to stimulate our fantasy and arouse unexpected ideas.

Guido Quarzo, born in Torino in 1948, a graduate in pedagogy, he has worked for many years in primary school education, both as teacher and as instructor. In particular, he has worked with theatre for children, writing scripts, and organising workshops and shows. Since 1989, he has begun to publish narrative texts for children of various ages which have won him numerous literary prizes. In 1999, he left the teaching sector to dedicate himself completely to writing. With hopefulmonster he has also published Tales of stone and more and Il costruttore di torri.

The story tells of a teacher, Miss Pizzi, who took the children of the Terza C class in the Kingdom of Silence - a wood at the border of the city - and lost everybody there. Then the journalists, soldiers and policemen came, but nor them and nor the town mayor could make the children come back from the Silent Wood. Luì, a crazy child who stands for hours under the rain and listens to the leaves speaking, will solve the situation going into the wood simply armed of his imagination, catching shapes and colours and the armony that they produce in Art, a music that shed into the hole wood and made the children follow it and get out of the Silent labyrinth.

The words by Guido Quarzo let the children live landscapes of sounds, shapes and colours, suggested by the works by Luigi Mainolfi, things that would like to become nature in spite of adverse temptations.

Luigi Mainolfi, born at Rotondi (AV) in 1948, he completed his studies at the Accademia di Napoli, gaining a diploma in painting. In the Seventies, he moved to Turin, where he taught at an arts-based high school. From 1979, with the realisation of the Bell , he took a determined step towards a rebirth of sculpture in the panorama of contemporary art. He makes his sculptures using terracotta, wood, bronze and other metals. Blending nature and artifice, and so creating ambiguous, surprising crosses; fabulous monsters able to stimulate our fantasy and arouse unexpected ideas.

Guido Quarzo, born in Torino in 1948, a graduate in pedagogy, he has worked for many years in primary school education, both as teacher and as instructor. In particular, he has worked with theatre for children, writing scripts, and organising workshops and shows. Since 1989, he has begun to publish narrative texts for children of various ages which have won him numerous literary prizes. In 1999, he left the teaching sector to dedicate himself completely to writing. With hopefulmonster he has also published Tales of stone and more and Il costruttore di torri.

A new tale by Miguel Angel Mendo for La favola dell'arte . A young artist, Nari Ward, Jamaican by birth but living in New York, provides the inspiration for this new adventure. A tale "against". Against waste, standardization, extravagant consumption, which can lead us and our children to loose the joy of preserving things with love, and lose our relationship with other people, both similar and different to us.

La favola dell'arte , or a fabulous way of entering the world of art. The art of writing and the art of the figure in a close synergy at the service of fun and learning.

Nari Ward was born in St. Andrews, Jamaica, in 1963. “[...] While Ward resonates far beyond the Harlem locale that often acts as incubator for his creative impulses, he often acts as lay archaeologist of this well-chronicled neighborhood. [...] He is a seeker and his art tells the tale of this self-compelled odissey. [...] Sometimes, the things that catch his eye are too close to us; competing for our divided attention, they simply fall off the radar screen. His evocative installations incorporate everyday finds baby strollers, stockfish, shopping carts, plastic bags sending out an SOS to which we can't help but respond” (Olukemi Ilesanmi).

Miguel Angel Mendo was born in Madrid in 1949. A graduate in psychology, he began working as a psychotherapist in close contact with the world of children and alternative pedagogy. He has written books for children, but also for the theatre, and in the past has been a teacher of cinema, a contributor to various periodicals and an editor of television and radio programmes.