OUR BOOKS

GIUSEPPE FESTA

Born in Genoa, illustrator Anna Pirolli moved to Milan to study illustration at the European Institute of Design, where she graduated in 2001. She has worked as a freelance illustrator and art director for companies such as Mondadori, Pearson, Vogue, MTV, Kinder Ferrero, Telecom, Nickelodeon, Furla, Zecchino d’oro, Disney, following the creative process from concept to creation. She's also a visiting professor at the Accademia di Brera in Milan, where she teaches design applied to the arts. Despite her love for traditional techniques, her artwork is mostly digital. Ironically, her dream-like, suspended atmospheres often don't look digital at all. Her first picture book, I Hate My Cats, written by Davide Calì, was published by Chronicle Books in October 2018.

Alessandra Stanga, a graphic designer and illustrator, graduated with honours from the Academy of Fine Arts in Genoa and now lives and works in Desenzano del Garda.

Her style combines freehand drawing and digital colour.

In 2013 she won a contest organised by Adriano Salani Editore on the occasion of the publishing house's 50th anniversary, with a digital illustrator for the cover of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

Claudia Petrazzi is an illustrator and comic artist of children’s books. She collaborates with French and Italian publishers such as Giunti, Mondadori, DeAgostini, Auzou and Poulpe Fictions. For Il Castoro she illustrated Andrea Fontana’s comic strip Clara e le Ombre, which won the Prix Des Lecteurs Du Var in France.

In 2022, she made her debut as the author of a short comic story for Attaccapanni Press and the Atomi webcomic.

Davide Panizza studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino and at MiMaster in Milan where he got to know the world of illustration for children. Today he lives and works in Bologna, illustrating adventures or creating board games for children. His latest publications include the three books of the Detective Linus series by Angelo Mozzillo (Battello a Vapore), the picture book Animalicomio by Pino Pace (Gruppo Abele editore) and the two Capitan Bitorzolo early reader books by Andrea Visibelli (Il Castoro).

Elisa Rocchi is an illustrator who specialises in the children’s sector.

Born in Bologna, after spending a few years in Milan she returned to live in Bologna, together with her husband and two children. Books have always been her passion; as a little girl she loved spending afternoons in the library and dreamed of one day being the creator of the illustrations inside them.

She now works for various Italian publishers (such as Mondadori, Battello a Vapore, Giunti) and foreign publishers and continues to carve out afternoons in the library… in the company of her children.

A writer, presenter, TV author and populariser, Federico Taddia collaborates with Topolino, Rai, Radio24 and La Stampa. One of his passions has always been to use the right words to tell the youngest everything that scientists study, look for and discover. He has written books with Margherita Hack, Telmo Pievano, Elisa Palazzi and Antonella Viola. With Teste Toste he won the Andersen Prize for the best science series for girls and boys and with Virus Game he won the Piccolo Galileo prize.

Gloria Danili was born in Monza in 1982, when E.T. hit cinemas (and the Earth). She worked as a window dresser around Europe, then as a set designer, advertising set decorator and TV writer (DeaKids, Super!). After a creative writing master's in Milan, she moved to the United Kingdom. Today she lives in Richmond, a Tudor village on the outskirts of London, along with a gang of dreamers. On behalf of the Italian Cultural Institute in London, she curates and hosts Book O'Clock, an online book club for Italian children and families residing in the UK.

Marco Cattaneo is a sports journalist and TV presenter. A writer for children mainly on the theme of football, he has published books together with Alessandro Del Piero and Billy Costacurta.

Stefano Garzaro has spent forty-odd years among scholastic publishing houses, publishing historical investigations in his spare time. He likes rummaging through marginal cultures, walking in the suburbs, listening on the street to stories born from other people’s dreams. Every once in a while, he drops his hood and robs memory banks. He’s not a collector, but if he really had to, he’d collect topographic maps. Is this a flat biography? He prefers to have his real adventures in the stories he writes.