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ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: Mr. Lepron’s Mystery Soup
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Milan
STATE:
COUNTRY: Italy
NATIONALITY: Italian
LAST VOLUME: SATA 344
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1962, in Milan, Italy.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Publisher, art director, editor, author, and poet. Topipittori (publishing company), Milan, Italy, cofounder (with Paolo Canton), editor, and art director, 2004–, blog editor, 2010–. Has taught at Accademia Drosselmeier, Bologna, Italy.
AWARDS:White Ravens list, 2005, for Mondocane, 2006, for Di notte sulla strada di casa, and 2007, for Anselmo va a scuola; Premio Andersen, 2007, for Due scimmie in cucina, and 2008, for Al supermercato degli animali; Paterson Prize honor book, 2014, for I Wish I Had … ; Premio Andersen finalist, 2016, for Quando il sole si sveglia; Notable Children’s Books designation, American Library Association, 2018, for Professional Crocodile.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals and websites, including Doppiozero and Federico Novaro Libri.
SIDELIGHTS
Giovanna Zoboli is the cofounder of Topipittori, a leading Italian publisher of children’s books. Born in Milan, where she continues to live and work, Zoboli has also written more than fifty works, such as the award-winning Due scimmie in cucina. A number of her titles have been published in North America in English translation, including Al supermercato degli animali, as Animal Supermarket, and Il topo che non c’era, as A Most Mysterious Mouse.
Featuring whimsical illustrations by Simona Mulazzani, Animal Supermarket depicts the shopping habits of several furry, hooved, and winged customers inside a most unusual grocery store. No heavily processed foods exist here; instead, the shelves are lined with termites (for toucans), turnips (for goats), blueberries (for bears), and a variety of seafood (for polar bears). A critic in Kirkus Reviews noted that the story offers “a tongue-in-cheek reminder that good food doesn’t have to come in a box, jar or plastic bag.”
Vorrei avere … , published in the United States as I Wish I Had … , was described by a Publishers Weekly reviewer as a “simple, graceful, and even majestic meditation [that] reflects on the beauty and strength of familiar animals.” In the work, an unseen narrator seeks a connection to the natural world, longing to possess such extraordinary gifts as the keen sight of a blackbird, the alertness of a mouse, and the thoughts of a deer. “There is a dignified eloquence at work here,” stated Booklist contributor Kara Dean, who called I Wish I Had … “a book of big ideas, sparingly told, and full of wonder.”
Zoboli’s bedtime tale Il grande libro dei pisolini was released in English translation as The Big Book of Slumber. Zoboli’s soothing, rhyming couplets describe the nocturnal habits of giraffes, crocodiles, camels, and seals, among other creatures. “Zoboli’s verses contain appealing moments,” opined a Publishers Weekly writer, and a contributor in Kirkus Reviews noted that “the repeated introductory words, ‘hushaby, lullaby,’ establish a serene cadence.” A number of critics applauded Mulazzani’s fanciful artwork, which shows a hippo resting on a sofa and a lion donning flowered pajamas. According to Horn Book reviewer Julie Roach, this “ode to the joys of dreamland sets just the right tone for a restful night.”
A feline takes center stage in Il topo che non c’era, which means “The Mouse That Wasn’t There” but was translated as A Most Mysterious Mouse. The protagonist grows obsessed with imagining all shapes and sizes of mice, in particular one strange and elusive creature. “Touching on themes of solitude, creativity, and obsession, it’s a story that’s alternately elusive and philosophical,” a Publishers Weekly contributor noted. In Felix, originally published as Gatto Felice, a curious cat embarks on a world tour to visit distant relatives. While visiting China, Felix has tea with a pair of snow leopards; in Brazil, he shares a meal with a panther; while touring Africa, he naps with a pride of lions. A Kirkus Reviews writer observed that Zoboli’s text is “plush and whimsical” in this “agreeable world tour.”
[open new]Professione coccodrillo, illustrated by Mariachiara Di Giorgio and translated as Professional Crocodile, is a wordless picture book that shows the somewhat old-fashioned Mr. Crocodile—dressing dapper, reading a newspaper on the subway–heading off for an honest day’s work. School Librarian reviewer Jane Doonan found the story “particularly witty,” as the final spread proves “a huge joke which shows him in his work-place.” Doonan reveled in the tale’s “glorious absurdity.”
Mr. Lepron’s Mystery Soup, the translation of La zuppa Lepron, follows a rabbit patriarch as his descendants collect vegetables and herbs for his family-favorite autumn stew. The stew proves so delicious that other forest animals come calling, Mr. Lepron thinks to start a business, and sales boom. Yet quiet family times of yore seem idyllic as running the operation makes him uptight and anxious and his dreams turn to nightmares. So Mr. Lepron opts to drop culinary fame in favor of family time after all. A Kirkus Reviews writer observed that Zoboli’s “lengthy, descriptive” narrative lends Mr. Lepron a “deep humanity” and, together with illustrations by Di Giorgio, constructs a “compelling, dreamy world that harkens back to the past.” Noting that this story, like Professional Crocodile, offers a savvy critique of modern capitalism, the reviewer praised Mr. Lepron’s Mystery Soup as a “clever, compassionate, and elegantly wrought reminder to do what makes you happy.”[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2013, Kara Dean, review of I Wish I Had … , p. 78.
Children’s Bookwatch, September, 2016, review of A Most Mysterious Mouse.
Horn Book, May-June, 2013, Lolly Robinson, review of I Wish I Had … , p. 75; July-August, 2014, Julie Roach, review of The Big Book of Slumber, p. 85.
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2013, review of I Wish I Had … ; March 15, 2014, review of The Big Book of Slumber; February 15, 2015, review of Animal Supermarket; July 15, 2018, review of Felix; September 15, 2024, review of Mr. Lepron’s Mystery Soup.
Publishers Weekly, January 14, 2013, review of I Wish I Had … , p. 60; February 3, 2014, review of The Big Book of Slumber, p. 53; July 18, 2016, review of A Most Mysterious Mouse, p. 209; August 19, 2024, review of Mr. Lepron’s Mystery Soup, p. 72.
School Librarian, winter, 2017, Jane Doonan, review of Professional Crocodile, p. 225.
ONLINE
Eerdlings, https://eerdlings.com (November 7, 2018), review of Felix.
Rhapsody in Books, https://rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com (December 1, 2018), review of Felix.
Topipittori website, https://www.topipittori.it/en/ (April 13, 2025), author profile.
Giovanna Zoboli is a writer and publisher. In 2004, together with Paolo Canton, she founded Topipittori, where she is currently an editor and art director. Her books, which count more than thirty, have been published in Italy and abroad. She lives and works in Milan.
August 1, 2017
Let's Talk Illustrators #34: Mariachiara di Giorgio
Recently I read a book that I know will stick with me forever. I'm both ashamed and delighted to admit that when I picked up this book and read it (read the illustrations, that is -- it's a wordless book) I had no idea what was going to happen at the end. I was totally and completely swept up in the illustrations and the day-to-day activities of the protagonist's life that even the title of the book, Professional Crocodile, didn't tip me off about what I'd find at the end. And that's one-hundred percent because of the immaculately detailed world-building author Giovanna Zoboli and illustrator Mariachiara di Giorgio did for this book. Readers can't help but get swept up in this fantastic world, and it was such a pleasure to talk to Mariachiara about how Professional Crocodile came to be.
About the book:
Mr. Crocodile loves his job. Every morning he gets up with an alarm. He brushes his teeth. He chooses the right tie to match his outfit, eats a quick slice of toast, and heads off to work on a crowded train. But what exactly is his job? The answer may surprise you Readers will want to pore over this witty, wordless book again and again, finding new details and fresh stories with every reading.
Peek underneath the dust jacket here.
Let's talk Mariachiara di Giorgio!
LTPB: Professional Crocodile is a slow story with a lot of world-building -- we wordlessly observe Crocodile as he travels from panel to panel and page to page, journeying to work for the day. And we get SO many points of view. How did you create the world we experience? What steps did you take to combine the lives of humans and anthropomorphic animals?
MdG: This book gave me a chance to portray daily life. I was happy about that. I'm lucky because I live in a neighborhood where you can feel you're part of the community. You can wave hello to people while walking down the street. The day starts, each person has their own life. Different points of view. The reader can either identify with the way the crocodile sees things, or with the kid at the traffic light gazing at a big reptile wearing a scarf and a Borsalino hat.
The reader can also -- not unlike many of those who commute to work -- choose to ignore details. For them, daily routine hides incredible things! That's why my book was going to be as realistic as I could make it. Take the image of the escalators in the subway station:
I drew a fairly typical setting, so that's where the reader will usually read fast, taking for granted those pieces of information he's getting from the image, and he will miss a cheetah in plain sight! So when I point that out to readers I enjoy seeing their gaze change entirely, becoming active, hunting for the story hidden in the picture.
I was inspired by my own life: there's my home, my streets, my stores. If I think back to what I read as a kid, Raymond Briggs' Santa Claus comes to mind; also, No Kiss for Mother, by Tomi Ungerer. They both depicted a daily life that felt like my own. They drew me in, too, which is what I tried to do with this book.
LTPB: How closely did you work on this book with Giovanna Zoboli, the author? What kind of text did she provide you with so you could translate it into a wordless image-driven story?
MdG: Giovanna had written the story years ago, though none of the artists that got involved ever got to actually work on it. So it landed on my lap. Though I've worked on simpler stories, this book didn't take much editing. I had a lot of the imagery already in me, and it worked well with that Giovanna had in mind. She invited me to freely edit it, but I never felt the need to, and I only added a bunch of narrative elements -- the granny in the subway with the grandchild reappearing at the end of the book and the dream sequence at the beginning.
I took something I'd already drawn and Giovanna and Paolo liked it so then we decided that the cover was going to have to do with the dream (it's under the dust-jacket in the US version, which you can see here).
LTPB: How does your past as a storyboard artist and cartoonist influence creating a wordless picture book? How do you “repurpose” those skills for the sake of illustrating a children’s book?
MdG: Doing storyboards has helped me a lot. I also love movies that show cities. Take Truffaut or Woody Allen, where you see the protagonist wandering around the city, then we lose him in the crowd, then we zoom and find him again. Giovanna's story felt like it was made for a short film.
Cinema's grammar came in handy at times -- the sense of rhythm, the cuts, the lighting. I was able to pick the shape of the book, and I made it horizontal. It felt more dynamic, with whole pages of cinemascope.
LTPB: What are you working on now?
MdG: I'm working on a bunch of things. I hope that one of them, Matilda, for Portuguese publisher Bruàa Editora, will come out in the US too.
LTPB: If you could choose anyone to illustrate your picture book biography, who would it be and why?
MdG: I'm thinking comic strips, namely Charles Schulz. I'm impatient like Lucy Van Pelt and my hair's a mess like Peppermint Patty's.
A million thanks to Mariachiara for taking time to provide many words about a wordless book! Professional Crocodile publishes TODAY from Chronicle Books!
Special thanks to Mariachiara and Chronicle Books for use of these images!
Zoboli, Giovanna MR. LEPRON'S MYSTERY SOUP Candlewick Studio (Children's None) $18.99 10, 1 ISBN: 9781536233391
A rabbit learns a lesson in doing what he loves best--for the right reasons.
It's the first day of autumn, which means it's time for the debonair Mr. Lepron and his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to pick vegetables and herbs so he can make his special soup. The meal is loved by all, sparking word-of-mouth buzz that brings throngs of animals and diverse people to his forest abode to partake. The business-minded hare soon decides to mass-market his confection, with "a big brick building where soup will be made around the clock." As his soup becomes more famous, his dreams, once calming and a contributing factor to the delicacy's tastiness, become frenzied and anxious, depicted as surreal nightmares, in stark contrast to the light, airy visions of the past. Customers no longer appreciate the soup as much. Realizing that he's changed, Mr. Lepron closes his business and retires to the forest, where he does what he enjoys most: spending time with family (and cooking soup now and again). Zoboli's lengthy, descriptive text, translated from Italian, and Di Giorgio's watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil art, together infuse Mr. Lepron with a deep humanity and construct a compelling, dreamy world that harkens back to the past in its tone and look but, with its nods to the all-consuming nature of capitalism, feels grounded in current realities, much like their previous collaboration,Professional Crocodile (2017).
A clever, compassionate, and elegantly wrought reminder to do what makes you happy.(Picture book. 5-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
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"Zoboli, Giovanna: MR. LEPRON'S MYSTERY SOUP." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A808342881/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5f86a80e. Accessed 7 Mar. 2025.
* Mr. Lepron's Mystery Soup
Giovanna Zoboli, trans. from the Italian by Denise Muir, illus. by Mariachiara Di Giorgio. Candlewick Studio, $18.99 (48p) ISBN 978-1-5362-3339-1
Fantastically detailed watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil illustrations give extra sparkle to this theatrically narrated fable about change caused by the relentless demands of growth and success. Prior collaborators Zoboli and Di Giorgio (Professional Crocodile) introduce Mr. Lepron, "a very handsome hare with a bright shiny coat and lovely long ears," who makes a tasty vegetable soup so renowned that he eventually starts a factory to manufacture it: "Children cry for it; adults crave it." But the inventive dreams that seem to power Mr. Lepron's soup-making soon turn to nightmares, and his real-life business begins to suffer complaints. Lush illustrations imagine it all: a cutaway view of Mr. Lepron's garden and kitchen, hilarious scenes of global soup fame, the soup label itself, and dream after dream after dream, including one in which Hera and Zeus, raving about the product, "order Apollo to make ready a chariot to take them to Earth." Only Mr. Lepron's own resolution can save him in this marvelously visualized culinary fable about simplicity gone spectacularly awry. Human characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3-7. (Oct.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Mr. Lepron's Mystery Soup." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 32, 19 Aug. 2024, p. 72. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A807359457/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d88b49d3. Accessed 7 Mar. 2025.
Zoboli, Giovanna and Di Giorgio, Mariachiara
Professional Crocodile
Chronicle Books, 2017, pp32, 12.99 [pounds sterling]
978 1 4521 6506 6
Reading wordless picture books never is a soft option, however this particularly witty one is well worth the effort. It introduces us to an endearing, if unlikely, new hero: a crocodile with a profession. Mr. Crocodile takes himself, his lifestyle and his occupation seriously. We join him as his alarm clock drags him from a dream. He rises and dresses stylishly: pin stripe trousers, snappy braces, a sharp shirt, toning tie, elegant felt hat, and a herringbone tweed overcoat. After a quick breakfast, he's off on a journey across town, on foot and by Metro. Mr. Crocodile goes underground via the escalator. On the platform he reads his newspaper. He crams into an overcrowded train. When above ground again, he buys some take-away chicken, presumably for his lunch. In every instance his behaviour is unremarkable for a human being but quite the reverse for a crocodile. In the visual narrative no one takes any notice of him but he's a mystery to the picturebook viewer. We have to keep following him until the final serene double page frame--a huge joke which shows him in his work-place. (No plot spoilers). The illustrations for the whole glorious absurdity are in comics-art style, with frames, large and small, viewpoints high and low and near and far. It's highly accomplished cartooning, replete with amusing detail, and positively encourages viewers to create their own stories about Mr. Crocodile's world.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The School Library Association
http://www.sla.org.uk/school-librarian.php
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Doonan, Jane. "Zoboli, Giovanna and Di Giorgio, Mariachiara: Professional Crocodile." School Librarian, vol. 65, no. 4, winter 2017, p. 225. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A521290449/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=4c7b19cf. Accessed 7 Mar. 2025.