Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay

Summary of Book

Ada Ríos grew up in Cateura, a small town in Paraguay built on a landfill. She dreamed of playing the violin, but with little money for anything but the bare essentials, it was never an option...until a music teacher named Favio Chávez arrived. He wanted to give the children of Cateura something special, so he made them instruments out of materials found in the trash. It was a crazy idea, but one that would leave Ada—and her town—forever changed. Now, the Recycled Orchestra plays venues around the world, spreading their message of hope and innovation.

Author Biography

Susan Hood is the award-winning author of many picture books for young readers, including THE LAST STRAW: Kids vs. Plastics; ADA’S VIOLIN; SHAKING THINGS UP: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World; and TITAN AND THE WILD BOARS: The True Cave Rescue of the Thai Soccer Team. Susan is the recipient of the E.B. White Honor Award, the Christopher Award, the Américas Award, the International Latino Award, and the Bank Street Flora Steiglitz Straus Award, given to “a distinguished work of nonfiction that serves as an inspiration to young people.” In 2018, Susan published her first middle grade novel LIFEBOAT 12, which won the 2019 SCBWI Golden Kite Award for middle grade fiction and is now nominated for many state awards.

Illustrator Biography

Sally Wern Comport began her career as an artist at age 15, drawing furniture newspaper ads for her dad’s [much more innocent] Mad-Men-era advertising agency. Since then, her prolific catalog of creative works spans decades, applying visual problem solving to editorial concepts, corporate collateral, children’s publications, commercial branding design, and large-scale art. Comport is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design and earned her graduate degree from Syracuse University and continues to guest lecture and teach at Maryland Institute College of Art. She co-founded W/C Studio Inc., a commercial art studio in 1986 with clients as wide-ranging as American Express Bank, Microsoft, UPS, and Simon Schuster Publishing. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of American Illustration in New York.

Comport established her design studio Art at Large, Inc. in 2003, which specializes in large-scale artistic solutions for interior and exterior spaces. Clients include George Washington’s Mount Vernon, University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopedic Institute, the Harriet Tubman Visitors Center, Anne Arundel Medical Center, and the Maryland Historical Society. She serves as a designer/consultant to several non-profit Boards, including Providence Center, Visit Annapolis, and the public art initiative she co-founded in 2004 known as ArtWalk. Comport’s latest picture books include Love Will See You Through: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Six Guiding Beliefs by Dr. Angela Farris Watkins and Ada’s Violin by Susan Hood, for which she has received many honors including the Christopher Award, the 2017 Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, and inclusion in The Society of Illustrator’s Original Art Show. Sally is represented by Shannon Associates in New York City, and resides with her family in Annapolis, Maryland.