Enchanted Lion Books, 248 Creamer Street, Studio 4, Brooklyn, NY (2025)

11/25/2025

📣 Next Wednesday, Dec 3: Join for a holiday fête with some incredible authors & illustrators signing the gift books of the season!

Meet a dazzling set of artists, designers, and writers, bring home signed editions to collect and give, enjoy Prosecco and Italian sweets, and help Rizzoli toast a new year as a quintessential New York bookstore.

Featuring Enchanted Lion creators:
- 6:30–7:15pm: & (Don’t Eat Me! The Almost True Story of Belladonna)
- 7:15–8pm: (Before She Was My Grandmother)
- 7:15–8pm: (The Adventures of Cipollino)

Date and time:
Wednesday, December 3 • 6–8pm
- Doors open at 6pm for browsing and drinks.
- Author signings will take place 6:30–8pm.
- Book purchase required to enter signing line.

Location:
Rizzoli Bookstore
1133 Broadway, New York, NY 10010

FREE & open to the public! We hope to see many of you there 🫶

11/18/2025

We’re thrilled to share that THREE Enchanted Lion books have been selected for the most amazing holiday gift guides! 🎉🎁❄️💛✨

For the , recommends:
- THE FORGOTTEN TEACHERS by & , deeming it “a whimsical atlas of the evolution of life on Earth”
- and THE BOY WHO BECAME A PARROT by & .f.carlin, Winters’s “favorite children’s book of 2025!”

Meanwhile, ’s recommends ’s THE ADVENTURES OF CIPOLLINO, translated by Antony Shugaar & illustrated by , as one of their “Carefully Selected, Unusually Special Gifts Under $50!”

Thank you so much to the writers & editors of The New Yorker and New York Magazine for shining a spotlight on our titles! We hope you’ll choose to give your loved ones the gift of reading, storytelling, and art this holiday season with one of these brilliant books 💛

11/03/2025

“For my last guest post, I want to tell you about one of my favorite characters. (Okay, that’s not really fair: over the years of living with them, I have come to love them all. All my little fruits and vegetables with their little quirks and imperfections, all of them delightful, even when throwing a tantrum!)

But Squire Peapod, Esquire, the town lawyer, really IS special. First of all HE IS A PEAPOD. Before you read any further—think about what a peapod character could look like… Is he just a pod? Can we see the peas? Is the pod vertical or horizontal? Secondly, he is complex and sneaky, and makes some questionable choices throughout the book—only to redeem himself—and don’t we all love a personal growth story?

Of course, I could also talk endlessly about Mister Baby Carrot (what a silly fool) or Duke Tangerine (now, THIS GUY knows how to throw a tantrum)—but I have taken up enough of your time, and really you should JUST GO READ THE BOOK! It is delightful!

Thank you for following along, and I hope to see some of you at a future book event!

—Love, Dasha (and Peggy, the dog)”

This is the last post from illustrator about her newest project, ’s THE ADVENTURES OF CIPOLLINO. If you’re looking for more, come to our book launch—featuring Dasha Tolstikova & translator Antony Shugaar, as well as ’s Mark Krotov & our very own Claudia Bedrick—at .nyc on Nov 23! 💛

10/31/2025

“Happy Halloween, chickens! Welcome to installment 2 of the behind-the-scenes look at the making of THE ADVENTURES OF CIPOLLINO.

So, the first thing I needed to do was to stop thinking of all the versions of the book that had come before, and to really try to make the illustrations my own.

I dove in to figure out what the characters were going to look like: Were they going to be just vegetables with arms and legs? Were they going to be humans in vegetable costumes? If not, what would they wear? And while the book is set in a made-up kingdom, I wanted the world to be tied to something specific.

In the end, I settled on human-like bodies with fruit and vegetable heads. For the era, I looked at 20th century Italy before the 1930s—sort of like the world of Gabriele d’Annunzio (whose villa I had visited with my family some years prior, where I learned about his complex personality and admired his vast collection of shoes).

There is a very clear class distinction in the book, and it was very important to me to make a separation between the village vegetables and the aristocratic fruits. I thought a lot about the outfits they would wear—and also the difference in behavior. For instance, I wanted to make sure that Count Maraschino was very precise and crisp, while the village kids got to be more free.”

— , illustrator of ’s THE ADVENTURES OF CIPOLLINO

10/30/2025

“Thank you, ELB, for letting me take over your Instagram for a few days to talk about my beloved THE ADVENTURES OF CIPOLLINO by Gianni Rodari. The book is finally out NOW, and I could not be more excited to have it out in the world, for the very first time in English!

Of course, when I was a child in the Soviet Union in the 80s, THE ADVENTURES OF CIPOLLINO was one of the most popular stories for children. The tale of a brave onion boy fighting for a more just world was everywhere: there was a ballet, a puppet show, a beautiful cartoon; there were countless toys; Cip (as I like to call him) was even on stamps...

So when I got the opportunity to illustrate this seminal piece of children’s literature I was both excited and nervous...”

—Dasha Tolstikova, illustrator of THE ADVENTURES OF CIPOLLINO

Stay tuned this week as takes over the Enchanted Lion Instagram and shares more about her process illustrating this classic novel from one of Italy’s most beloved children’s authors!

10/28/2025

The great day has finally arrived when ’s THE ADVENTURES OF CIPOLLINO is officially out in English, for the first time ever!

Following a young onion named Cipollino as he fights against injustice and scoundrels everywhere, this beloved classic of Italian children’s literature is one that has been read around the world in many languages and loved for decades, and a book that Hayao Miyazaki named as one of his “favorite children’s books” of all time. And now, we can’t wait for you, our dear readers, to discover it for yourselves!

Our edition features a sparkling translation from Antony Shugaar, and abundant, gorgeous illustrations, both witty and tender, that dazzle on almost every page from artist .

Dasha Tolstikova first read CIPOLLINO as a child growing up in Russia, where the story was so popular that it was adapted into both an animated film and a ballet. As she brings Cipollino and the other fruit, vegetable, and animal characters who join in his adventures to glorious life, Tolstikova tends to both characters and settings with great affection and delight. Stay tuned as she takes over our Instagram this week with more on her illustration process!

Cipollino and his friends are sure to make your heart sing—kind-hearted and brave and just mischievous enough to get into “good, necessary trouble” (à la John Lewis), as they fight for a more fair and free world in which to flourish. Written in post–WWII Italy, this episodic novel brims with hope and optimism for just that kind of world. It’s a timeless and timely book, and we’re excited for English-language readers to now have the chance to discover it!

10/23/2025

Happy birthday to the one and only ! Born on this day in 1920, Rodari was an Italian children’s writer, journalist, and educator who strongly believed in the liberating, transformative power of the imagination.

Rodari is widely considered to be the father of modern Italian children’s literature, and we’re proud to have published several of his major works in English, with all new illustrations:

- TELEPHONE TALES, trans. by Antony Shugaar, illus. by
A winner, this collection of fanciful, funny, and wise short stories was our first Rodari book, and it features flaps, gatefolds, and more!

- THE BOOK OF WHYS, trans. by Antony Shugaar, illus. by
This book collects questions from real kids throughout Italy who would write into Rodari’s newspaper column: Rodari would answer with the facts, but also little poems and short stories, as he understood that the best way to learn is through having fun!

- LAMBERTO, LAMBERTO, LAMBERTO, trans. by Antony Shugaar, illus. by
Rodari’s last novel tells a rollicking tale of life and death, health and wealth, and… bandits and balloons! With the kind of magic that’s only possible in fairy tales and a levity of touch, Rodari also skewers the rich, bureaucracy, and more.

- THE GRAMMAR OF FANTASY, trans. by Jack Zipes, illus. by
Perfect for educators, creatives, and any one looking to unleash their imagination, this is a guide to inventing stories with and for children that sparkles with Rodari’s wit and whimsy.

- THE ADVENTURES OF CIPOLLINO, trans. by Antony Shugaar, illus. by
Our latest Rodari book will be coming out next week! One of Hayao Miyazaki’s favorite children’s books of all time, this episodic novel follows the adventures of a young onion as he faces off against the tyrannical Prince Lemon and other scoundrels of the upper class.

10/21/2025

“How many books, for children or otherwise, have you read where the main character is a mouse, a bear, a fox, a cat? How many have you read where the main character is a plant?

Plant blindness is a term that comes to us from botanists writing in the late 1990s, and it’s just what it sounds like: an inability to recognize the plants around us as active partners in our everyday lives. As DON’T EAT ME! THE ALMOST TRUE STORY OF BELLADONNA is coming out, I have been thinking of how lucky I was that on our first day of kindergarten, a naturalist and our P.E. teacher took us out to the woods behind the jungle gym to introduce us to stinging nettle. This plant was essential ‘do not touch’ knowledge for a class of kids who would soon be climbing trees, hopping creeks, and digging for grubs.

But what was most precious here was that after he’d asked for a willing volunteer to come forward and bravely touch something he had already called ‘stinging,’ he took us down to the creek where the jewelweed grows, split a stem open, and showed us how to apply its sap to our sting. Before long, the lot of us were running back and forth between the two plants, stinging ourselves, applying the antidote, just to see how it worked.

This, I think, is what I most hope to impart: A joy for discovery in the world around us, and the ability to notice who else is here.”

—, author of DON’T EAT ME! THE ALMOST TRUE STORY OF BELLADONNA

[Photos by Kate Finney from one of her hikes through the woods in Maine; Art by from DON’T EAT ME!]

10/19/2025

THE BOOK OF WHYS has been selected for the .books list of outstanding international children’s literature!

“English language readers finally get the chance to enjoy Rodari’s ingenious texts via Antony Shugaar’s inspired translations. Instead of just providing detailed information to the children’s quirky enquiries, Rodari’s answers straddle the border between facts and imagination by including funny asides, proverbs, irony, poems, and tongue-in-cheek remarks… Award-winning JooHee Yoon’s bright and bubbly coloured-pencil illustrations perfectly frame the witty texts and take readers on a whimsical visual journey.” —The 2025 Catalogue, (Munich, Germany)

10/17/2025

“I was deliberate in choosing who Belladonna’s plant companions would be. My criteria:
- they must be edible to humans
- they must be a plant that most children would have heard about
- they must exist on a different layer in the forest.

Here is OUR CAST:

RASPBERRY: Part of the shrub layer, or the understory. In the story, Belladonna speaks with Raspberry first because if plants really *did* have eyes, that’s who she would have seen first. They both exist within the same layer of the forest.

OAK: Part of the canopy, or the overstory. Old and wise, like most oak trees in stories. Next time you’re walking around in a forest, look up! Notice how the branches of each tree do or don’t brush each other in the wind. If the tree’s branches aren’t interfering with the branches of any of the trees around it, that means those trees have a good relationship with each other and are content to share access to light. If the branches *are* interfering with another tree, that means those trees are both competing for the same resource (light) and are willing to do some damage to get it.

FUNGUS: Part of the root layer, or the rhizosphere—this is where everything underground happens. Very mysterious.

These are Belladonna’s forest friends. I paid much less attention to all of the animals flitting through—Esmé has done a wonderful job of bringing those critters to life—but watch out for the pheasant! He’s Belladonna’s constant companion, even if it isn’t said with words.”

—, author of DON’T EAT ME! THE ALMOST TRUE STORY OF BELLADONNA

Stay tuned for more from Kate Finney and illustrator as they share how they made this brilliant picture book!

10/15/2025

Meet Belladonna! How did come up with her story?

“On the writing of DON’T EAT ME: THE ALMOST TRUE STORY OF BELLADONNA:

I knew I wanted to write a book about a predatory plant—something about the relationship between being rooted in place and having to figure out how to be just terrifying enough to keep away harm was really compelling for me. But when I first sat down with the idea, I couldn’t make it work. It was all very bloodthirsty... the first few paragraphs had Belladonna really just surrounded by death and it DEFINITELY would never work as a children’s book. So I let it fall out of my mind.

Years passed. Covid happened. I read and Dave Jacke’s EDIBLE FOREST GARDEN textbooks cover to cover and dreamed of planting peach trees, pawpaws, black raspberries, persimmons... Like everyone, it seems, I got deep into fungi. I wanted a garden more than anything during that time, so that I could have something to take care of. But I was essentially the unasked for fourth roommate in my partner’s apartment in Brooklyn, and my ability to make unilateral decisions about which of our windows would be sacrificed for plants was limited. So I read ’s GROWING GOURMET AND MEDICINAL MUSHROOMS, ordered some oyster mushroom spawn off the internet, and watched my little tub mushrooms fruit underneath my desk.

I read ’s BRAIDING SWEETGRASS, where she says she was ‘raised by strawberries.’ My own childhood was spent tramping through the woods with friends, gobbling wild blackberries, making forts, and trading rocks.

And somewhere during this, I woke up in the middle of the night with the story upon me. I wrote three drafts of DON’T EAT ME before the sun rose and handed the third to my partner over coffee. That same draft wound up in the hands of Enchanted Lion, and now (uncounted drafts later!) it’s a REAL BOOK.”

—, author of DON’T EAT ME! THE ALMOST TRUE STORY OF BELLADONNA

10/11/2025

“One big motivation for writing THE FORGOTTEN TEACHERS for me was thinking about the world I want my children to grow up in.

I hope there is a world for them with natural beauty and a world that respects the natural world. I also enjoyed thinking about the stories that I want to tell them about the place we live someday. The ways that they are connected to the wider natural world just like everyone else.

I think they are still too young to understand the book, but they love ’s illustrations, and I am excited that THE FORGOTTEN TEACHERS will be there for them when they are ready.”

—, author of THE FORGOTTEN TEACHERS

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