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Summary
Summary
In 1892, nine-year-old Dom's mother puts him on a ship leaving Italy, bound for America. He is a stowaway, traveling alone and with nothing of value except for a new pair of shoes from his mother. In the turbulent world of homeless children in Manhattan's Five Points, Dom learns street smarts, and not only survives, but thrives by starting his own business. A vivid, fascinating story of an exceptional boy, based in part on the author's grandfather.
Author Notes
Donna Jo Napoli was born on February 28, 1948. She received a B.A. in mathematics, an M.A. in Italian literature, and a Ph.D. in general and romance linguistics from Harvard University. She has taught on the university level since 1970, is widely published in scholarly journals, and has received numerous grants and fellowships in the area of linguistics.
In the area of linguistics, she has authored five books, co-authored six books, edited one book, and co-edited five books. She is also a published poet and co-editor of four volumes of poetry. Her first middle grade novel, Soccer Shock, was published in 1991. Her other novels include the Zel, Beast, The Wager, Lights on the Nile, Skin, Storm, Hidden, and Dark Shimmer. She is also the author of several picture books including Flamingo Dream, The Wishing Club: A Story About Fractions, Corkscrew Counts: A Story About Multiplication, The Crossing, A Single Pearl, and Hands and Hearts. She has received several awards including the New Jersey Reading Association's M. Jerry Weiss Book Award for The Prince of the Pond and the Golden Kite Award for Stones in Water.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-When Beniamino, a nine-year-old Jewish boy from Napoli, is smuggled aboard a cargo ship heading to America in 1892, he assumes his mother is onboard, too. Soon realizing that Mamma isn't with him, he makes the best of his plight, but his goal is to return home as soon as possible. Landing at Ellis Island, he evades good-hearted people who would send him to an orphanage and patrones who would put him to work begging on street corners. Assuming the name Dom Napoli, he sleeps in barrels and under bushes, and he quickly learns the lessons of the street: think fast, watch what's going on, and find friends who will help you. With the aid of two other streetwise urchins, he sets up a profitable sandwich business and eventually realizes that he likes New York and that his mother sent him there to make a better life for himself. The major characters are believable, and the minor ones-especially Mamma, landlady Signora Esposito, and grocer Grandinetti-are also wonderfully drawn, adding liveliness to the book. Though Napoli is an expert at gripping readers' emotions, which she does with consummate skill in this tale, the story occasionally lags as the boys figure out how to be successful in their chosen enterprise. Still, this richly imagined tale, based loosely on the author's family history, paints a vivid picture of the struggle many children faced when they first came to America.-Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Napoli (Stones in Water) carefully lays out the dramatic growth of nine-year-old narrator Beniamino, from his last day in Naples, Italy, to his premature graduation into adulthood on the tough streets of New York City's Five Points neighborhood in 1891. Readers must be patient in the beginning, as the boy makes his way through the crowded alleyways of Naples, sidestepping scugnizzi ("urchins, the poorest of the poor") notorious for stealing, and making money where he can (doing errands for the nuns). The author hints at how the boy's mother gets him new shoes and smuggles him, alone, onto a ship bound for America, but wisely leaves it to older readers to discern (even the hero, by book's end, admits, "I knew she'd sacrificed to do it, maybe in ways that were awful"). All of the groundwork pays off, however, as the boy's newly acquired skills serve him well, surviving on the streets and avoiding the horrific padrone system (Italians in America paid for children to cross the Atlantic and "work off" their debt, like slaves), and the pace picks up. Napoli credibly expands the narrator's awareness, as he begins to recognize some of the unspeakable cruelties going on around him yet manages to extend kindnesses to others (earning him the nickname "the king of Mulberry Street"), and to find his own makeshift family in this new world. This tale may well offer readers insight into how their own families found their way here-or send them in search of those stories. Ages 8-12. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate) When nine-year-old Beniamino's mother smuggles him aboard a ship bound for America, he expects to find her hiding elsewhere on the ship. When she doesn't appear, he sets about following her instructions to survive. Hiding his Jewish identity and even his name, he becomes Dom Napoli and makes his way to the Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan. In 1890s New York, a padrone was necessary for an Italian boy on his own, but his mother didn't want him to be anyone's slave. Through intelligence, a willingness to work, and a clear understanding of the importance of sharing, Dom finds friends and begins to make a living selling sandwiches to Wall Street workers. Before his tenth birthday, he is, indeed, his own boss and has come to terms with the sacrifice his mother made for him. Napoli's gift for bringing a world alive provides a strong setting for this moving account of the immigrant experience. Dom is a well-drawn character: a boy forced by circumstances to come of age quickly, a natural leader, and a sympathetic soul. Danger lurks just around the corner in Dom's life, and the story moves rapidly to a violent climax no less shocking because it occurs offstage. This is solid historical fiction for middle grade readers. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 6-9. Drawing on her grandfather's experience, Napoli dramatizes a seldom-told bit of American history in this story of Italian Jewish young people in the 1890s. Beniamino, who lives in Napoli, is only nine years old when his beloved, poverty-stricken Mama bribes someone to hide him away on a cargo ship to America. His lively, immediate first-person narrative recalls the trauma of separation and the brutal struggle on the New York streets, where, renamed Dom, he makes two Italian friends, and they start a business selling sandwiches. He keeps his Jewish identity secret, even as he tries to follow kosher rules. Always his dream is to return home. The characters are drawn with depth, especially the three kids, and the unsentimental story is honest about the grinding poverty and the prejudice among various immigrant groups. Most moving is the story of letting go, as Dom confronts the fact that Mama sent him away, and America is now his home. Connect this with Mary Auch's Ashes of Roses (2002), about Irish kids left alone in New York. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2005 Booklist