the story of a big Italian family and a little shovel
Yaccarino, Dan
Follows a little shovel and four generations of Italian Americans, from the farmer in Sorrento, Italy, to the illustrator great-great grandson who is raising his own family in New York City.
Giovanna Costa, reeling from personal tragedies, tries to make a new life for herself at the turn of the twentieth century in New York City's Little Italy.
Frank, a troubled, somewhat desperate, Italo-American works long hours in the grocery store of a struggling Jewish family in a Brooklyn neighborhood. He develops a secret passion for his employer's attractive daughter.
For one hundred years the Angelini Shoe Company has bought its shoe leather from Vechiarelli & Son in Tuscany. This business relationship leads Valentine Roncalli to meet and fall in love with Gianluca Vechiarelli, and the two start a life together with bumps on the road. However, Valentine meets each bump with the knowledge that anyone who can craft a shoe can do nearly anything.
With the help of her wise old grandmother, twelve-year-old Rosie manages to work out some problems in her relationship with her best friend, Bailey, the boy next door.
While regularly petitioning the Vatican to make her the first living saint, fifteen-year-old Antonia Labella prays to assorted patron saints for everything from help with preparing the family's fig trees for a Rhode Island winter to getting her first kiss from the right boy.
This modern take on Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," is set in Chicago during two time periods: the teenage daughter and son of two feuding Italian American families, who own competing restaurants, fall in love; the feud between the families is created when best friends fall in love with the same woman during the Depression.
The author of "Living, loving, and learning" commemorates his father, discussing his life, his own relationship with him, and what he learned from him.
