It consists of 70 short stories a travelling salesman nightly told his daughter over the phone while he was on the road. They are short because the salesman had to pay for private phone calls out of his own pocket.
Gianni Rodari was born in Omegna (Novara) in 1920. He started to write for children for the Sunday edition of a newspaper. Eventually he had enough material to create a collection of nursery rhymes for publication.
He has been the recipient of several esteemed prizes such as the Premio Prato, Premio Castello and Premio Rubino in Italy.
His Gip nel televisore also won the Andersen International Prize. There have been many radio and TV programmes based on his books including educational radio programmes for schools in Japan, cartoon shows, a puppet theatre piece (in Poland) and a feature length movie (in the former Soviet Union).
Other famous books includes Filastrocche in cielo e in terra (Nursery Rhymes in the Sky and on Earth, 1960), La torta in cielo (The Cake in the Sky 1966), Gip nel televisore (Gip in the Television, 1962), Le avventure di Cipollino (The Adventures of the Onion, 1951-1957), Gelsomino nel paese dei bugiardi (Gelsomino in the Country of Liars, 1958), and La freccia azzurra (The Blue Arrow, 1953).
Le avventure di Cipollino book has been translated into more than 20 languages, including French, Japanese, Russian and Vietnamese.
