A Tiger, strong and fierce. An Antelope, clever and fast. It sounds like the beginning of a normal hunt. But who’s the hunter and who’s the hunted, up and down the savannah? What if it’s all a game?
“Nascondino” by David Hearn is the winning book of the new Junior section of the Silent Book Contest – Gianni De Conno Award 2020 , established for this edition thanks to a closer collaboration between Carthusia Edizioni with the Salone Internazionale del Libro of Turin and BPER Banca, which sees the addition of a Children’s Jury who was called to vote for their winner among the 12 finalist works.
The Children’s Jury was made of 7 fourth grades classes of primary school from various regions of Italy. The approximately 120 children received the complete pdf files of the 12 finalists and, together with their teachers, analyzed and compared each other up to the final vote: each individual child had to cast their own vote (between 1 and 5) for each work.
“Nascondino” was choosen from the Children’s Jury as the winner because is a very funny and entertaining silent book. Through a simple narrative path, which starts from the “hunting” of a tiger for and antelope, it leads us to discover that sometimes things are not exactly what they seem, and that even those who apper tough and inflexible do so only because they wear a mask. And so, what looks like a hunt can actually turn out to be a simple game of “hide and seek”.
The book is published by Carthusia Edizioni and it’s available in italian bookshops and online. You can buy it here, for example.
David writes and illustrates books for children. David’s own childhood was piled high with pencils, paintbrushes and imagination. His mother was artistic and his father told stories. When he wasn’t climbing trees David would create comics, craft characters and cover his clothes with paint. After studying Art and Design at the university, David stopped getting so much paint on his clothes and worked in Portugal, Malta, Cyprus and the Maldives looking after holidaymakers. When he first thought about growing up he moved back to England to get a grown up job. David lives in Salisbury with his curly wife, his curly son and his smelly dog. He is still thinking about growing up, and he still has paint on his clothes. David pretends that he writes and illustrates his picture books in his home office, but mostly he does so while lounging on the sofa with his schnauzer snoring at his feet.
Here is his website and Instagram profile.
