Closer Look Ada — SusanHoodBooks

The Story Behind the Story

Recycled Orchestra conductor Favio Chávez and first violinist Ada Ríos

Ada’s Violin was my first nonfiction picture book. It’s the true story of children living on a landfill in Paraguay who formed the Recycled Orchestra, playing instruments made from recycled trash. They made flutes from drain pipes, cellos from oil drums, and violins from baking sheets. They formed an orchestra and are now world famous, playing for kings, queens and the Pope! I first saw them profiled on 60 Minutes and decided I wanted to interview one of the kids for a picture book.

Easier said than done. Writing this book was daunting, with many challenges along the way. I’d never written a nonfiction picture book. I don’t speak Spanish; Ada Ríos and Favio Chávez don’t speak English. I wasn’t even sure they had access to a phone or a computer. But I was dying to tell their story in their own words, rather than a story based on news reports. With luck and the help of many others including my extremely patient editor, I found the orchestra’s contact information, hired a translator, and waited for a window when the musicians weren’t in Holland or Japan or Columbia on tour. I ended up interviewing Conductor Favio Chávez for the book as well as the orchestra’s first violinist, young Ada Ríos, over email and Skype via my translator Shelley McConnell.

Ada and I finally got to meet on a school visit in New York

The experience was life-changing. I try not to take things for granted, but let’s face it. I have clean running water and electricity at the flick of a wrist. There’s green grass outside my door. It sounds ridiculous to say, but my family and I don’t think twice about phone service, air-conditioned transportation, police, firefighters, public schools, and garbage collection. Or something as simple and life-changing as shoes. It was shocking to realize that 20,000 people live on a garbage dump, with kids running barefoot in toxic chemicals and polluted waters, while their parents make the equivalent of $2 a day working 14-hour-days in 100-degree heat. (And it’s even more shocking to realize that this is not an isolated case. The more research I did I found that people live on garbage dumps all over the world—in Mexico, India, the Philippines, and on and on.)

“The world sends us garbage….We send back music.”
—Favio Chávez

I’ve always been an advocate of the arts, but Ada’s story vividly demonstrates the POWER of the arts. Music gave these aimless, forsaken kids with a sad past, a dangerous present, and a bleak future something to focus on, to strive toward, to hope for. For many, it was the only beauty in their lives. And now, it is a source of great pride that is helping to rebuild their lives and their community. Money from their concerts is being used to build new houses in Cateura. Sharing their story has been a huge privilege. Kids are dumbfounded by it and adults are often teary. As am I! Getting to know these people—Ada, her parents, Favio—changed me forever and made me take a hard look at all we take for granted. I feel so much gratitude for that!

Ada's Violin Curriculum Guide