Silence Sounds Simple: A Day in the Life of John Cage
Illustrations by Andrea D’Aquino

John Cage is a man who makes music with screws and bolts or with rubber bands. He’ll play a toy piano onstage in his suit. Why? To make people listen. To make them think. As John goes through an ordinary day, he finds that it’s full of wonder and full of music. John hears the seeds of music in everything from slippers scuffing on an old wooden floor and water whooshing from a faucet to beeping horns and screeching brakes outside. He even hears music in the silence of the forest as he harvests mushrooms.

“D’Aquino’s mixed media prints visually echo that experimentation. Layers of acrylic, oil pastel, collage, and found textures create bold graphic forms that feel spontaneous yet intentional. The layering of media and the variety in the density of white space and images, convey rhythm within the illustrations. The art projects visually sound while encouraging readers to focus a little longer on the illustrations, paralleling the meaning of silence benefitting from attention.”
School Library Journal Starred Review ★

“D’Aquino’s naive-style drawings pulse and flow in an exuberant expression of the music discovered in sound and silence. Recurring motifs—a black cat with a quizzical gaze, chirping birds, perching chess pieces—anchor fun, inventive layouts, with hand-lettered embellishments enhancing the rhythm on the page.”
Booklist Starred Review ★

“Andrea D’Aquino’s marriage of words and images is captivating. […] Returns us to our senses with expressive lines, loose brushstrokes and mixed-media collage.”
New York Times

“The music of silence is celebrated through the lens of a composer who appreciated it more than anyone... Golio’s text pairs well with D’Aquino’s eclectic cacophony of images, depicted in an array of purples, yellows, browns, and greens. A mind-expanding exploration of what lies in the spaces between the notes.”
Kirkus Reviews

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The Secret Story of Pigeons
By Marta Pantaleo

Pigeons are underrated and misunderstood. They invade our streets and squares, and they’re accused of being loud, dirty, and interested only in what we eat. But it hasn’t always been this way. Marta Pantaleo traces the remarkable journey of pigeons and reveals the surprising truth behind their enduring loyalty and incredible homing instinct.

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Italian

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