Italian author Gianni Rodari wrote many beloved children's books and was a recipient of the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award. He was also an educator who understood the liberating power of the imagination. He is one of the 20th century's greatest authors for children, and Italy's greatest. Decades after his death in 1980, Rodari's writing remains as powerful and innovative as ever. Antony Shugaar is a writer and translator. His translation of Rodari's Telephone Tales received the 2021 Batchelder Award for Most Outstanding Children's Translation and was awarded the 2020 Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs English Translation Prize. Dasha Tolstikova is the author and illustrator of A Year Without Mom, which received four starred reviews and was a Kirkus Best Book of the Year. She is also the illustrator of several of her own books, and her illustrations have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker. She lives in Brooklyn.