Solid read. Seamlessly shifts between the history of the time period & the fiction. Though the author continually used modern phrases when crafting dialogue or descriptions. I wished she hadn't Definitely a 'girl' book as the only action in the book revolves around Elisabetta 's 'love' life. Per...
The Smile is not really what I expected. I thought Leonardo would be more of a main character in this story and I would have liked it better if he had been. No, this was more about a young girl falling in love and facing the fact that in her lifetime, preteens married widowers like a couple of mo...
I found the book to be fascinating and the illustrations stunning. Napoli uses art styles similar to the Grecian vases that told stories of the Greek gods, and it's like looking a way cooler Disney Hercules movie with a more realistic outlook on the stories. It's still very clean in comparison to...
Mama Miti by Donna Jo Napoli This entry was posted on March 5, 2013, in Africa, Earth Day, Education, Picture Books, Teaching and tagged bookreview #kidlit, earthday, kidlit, picture books, YA. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment (Edit) I came across this gem during a search for books illustr...
What I really liked about this novel was the multicultural layer to the text. It really gave the relationships between the characters an extra intriguing layer. I had not learned about Sicilian prejudice in the South so this novel opened that area up for me. I thought the "love" between Calogero ...
It’s probable that Donna Jo Napoli’s books first sparked my interest in historical fiction with “Beast” being the most memorable. I am always confident when picking up a book from this author that the material is well researched – yet still suspenseful and not bogged down by someone trying too ha...
There are some strange new pets in Sly's neighborhood: a cat on a diet that keeps getting fatter, a fish that seems angry at its owner, and a peculiar pet named Wilson that suddenly disappears! Only Sly the Sleuth can solve these mysteries. Grade-schooler by day, private detective by afternoon, ...
Let me sum this book up in one word:.........what?My 14-year-old sister loves fairy tales, so I buy her pretty much every fairy tale book I can get my hands on. I found Zel as well as one of Napoli's other books, Beast, at a secondhand store and let me just say that I am glad I didn't pay full pr...
It's been so many years since I've read anything by Donna Jo Napoli -- I think more than a decade -- so I was pleased to find that she still "held up" after all this time, especially since I stopped reading her because I seem to have OD'd and found her books not "doing it" for me the same way the...
The story of a teenage Mary Magdalene -- here called Miriam -- is finally told.... When the world goes dark and her mind explodes within her, Miriam's future is shattered. In ancient Israel such seizures make her unclean. If anyone finds out about them, she will be an outcast. Only Abraham -- t...
In 1892, life was bleak, people were poor, and struggled every day to survive. At just 9 years-old, Dom was living in Italy with his family...a family who adored him, cared for him, and wanted only the best for him. His mother was his world. But, for whatever reason, Dom's mother thought it best ...
Sly (a.k.a. Sylvia) has newly set up shop as a neighborhood detective, and the advice from Kirkus Reviews is plain and simple: "Clear some shelf space" for this funny, engaging series.With each zany mystery brought to her by friends and parents—this time involving soccer, ballet, swimming, and ba...
Full Review: http://kendramerritt.com/the-blurred-...A good book makes me feel the whole gamut of emotions: joy, sorrow, anger, frustration, and shock. A great book does all that, but it also keeps me thinking long after I’ve turned the last past. Breath didn’t have the most engaging plotline or ...
Overall, I thought the Daughter of Venice was an ok book! it wasn't the best but not the worst.The main character Donata, receives no education, can never be out of her parents eye sight, and is the oldest daughter of a noble family in Venice, Italy. She has 4 sisters and 7 brothers. She has ve...
Sly (aka Sylvia) is now famous around the neighborhood for her creative problem-solving. In fact, this time around she has a few too many clients. But with her customary keen eye and clever observations, Sly solves three new cases, each with a culinary theme. And as usual, there are plenty of fun...
FOR THE PAST MONTH DIARRHEA HAD ravaged Don Giovanni. And he knew the cause. He’d seen it in his stools. Worms. Somehow worms had infested his body and settled into his gut. Cani had them, too. Which one had given them to the other, Don Giovanni didn’t know. Or maybe they’d both gotten them from ...
The sides are mirror images of each other—symmetrical. All these graphs on our calculus homework are familiar to me from ninth-grade geometry, but they’re fun to do again. Symmetries galore. I touch my lips. They are symmetrical across a vertical axis. Symmetry is part of beauty. Experiments prov...
Something’s wrong. The one who owns that rope with the bone hook—has he finally come down to kill me? I wriggle out from my nest, ready to meet him. It’s night again. Last night I waited for him. I expected sandal clacks on the ladder, curses, rough hands, and a hurl through bitter air into a bra...
She rubs with the back of her hands like a child. Darling. As darling as a puppy. She yawns wide, and stretches. Her eyes open and meet Tommaso’s. She sits up quickly and turns her back to him. “Go outside,” she whispers. “Please.” Tommaso goes outside. He grabs the shovel and heads for the wreck...
The beets grow wild, but in more profusion than would have occurred if I hadn’t nurtured them along. My beet field covers a wide swath that runs in a half-moon shape to the south of my home. The smell from my pot is sweet, as only beets close to pollination time can be. The water that came from t...
The hotel wasn’t on fire. Not a shot had disturbed the silence outdoors. Roberto rubbed his wrists. Kurt had untied him long enough to let him use a toilet, then eat a roll and a small chunk of cheese. It was hard to chew without breaking the scab at the corner of his mouth. He picked the dried...
But the hunting guests are arriving in droves. I run to the men’s pavilion. Shahpour, Father’s most trusted companion, leans against a column, talking. In his hands is a white cup. “A treasure,” he says, holding it before his eyes. He bows in gratitude. “The Shah has none carved so beautifully.” ...
We have sailed under full wind. If any among us has misgivings, we don’t voice them. Maybe we’re simply too busy for misgivings—learning the new tasks of sailing, staying alert to both land and sea, surviving. We turned out to be only nine in the end: Ragnhild and Thyra, Unn, Ingun, Grima, Jofrid...