Donna jo napoli biography of nancy
Fire in the Hills
Written by Donna Jo Napoli
Review by Nancy Castaldo
Donna Jo Napoli has done it again. With each book, she proves why she is one of today’s best writers for young adults. Fire in the Hills does not disappoint. In this sequel to Stones in Water, readers find Roberto still on his journey home to Venice during World War II.
Napoli does a wonderful job weaving in the details of her previous book to enlighten new readers, while her loyal following will welcome the reminders. Roberto’s tale begins when the Nazis take the 12-year-old from his town in Italy and force him into a labor camp in Eastern Europe. In this sequel he is now a teen making his way through the Italian countryside of Sicily and north to Venice. Roberto struggles to do what is right as he joins the resistance partigiani movement and takes on the name of Lupo. Together with a young women, Volpe Rossa – Red Fox – he smuggles guns and information on his trip home through German-occupied Italy.
This little-documented tale of Italian resistance and German invasion is utterly suspenseful. Adults who have enjoyed Corelli’s Mandolin will also enjoy Fire in the Hills. It’s also a great accompaniment to a World War II curriculum. Ages 12 and up.
Zel
Zel looks forward to their twice-yearly visits to the town market, where she can interact with all sorts of people. Mother looks forward to the time when Zel will have to make the choice between leaving the farm to start her own family, or staying with Mother forever. Mother could not bear it if Zel were to leave the farm, and pours her heart into making Zel happy. On their latest visit to the market, however, Zel encounters a young man, Konrad. Konrad sees Zel's sweet way with animals and her unusual manners, and is enchanted with her. When Zel calms Konrad's horse while the blacksmith removes a tick from the horse's ear, Konrad asks how he can repay her. Having no desire for money, Zel thinks of a solitary goose at the farm – she sits on a nest of rocks because she cannot have her own goslings. Zel asks for a goose egg, hoping to persuade the goose it is her own egg. Konrad is amazed at the request but takes the dark-eyed girl seriously and begins hunting for a goose egg.
As soon as Mother realizes Zel's thoughts have turned to a certain young man and the unsure way he made her feel, she acts to separate the two before they have a chance to meet again. Spiriting Zel high up into disused tower, Mother feeds Zel special foods to make her hair grow long. At first Mother reaches the tower by making a tree next to it grow and shrink, but eventually Mother can climb up by Zel's hair. Konrad, meanwhile, has been hunti
Poydar, Nancy
Personal
Born in MA. Education:Tufts University, B.A., 1964; studied art at DeCordova Museum and Boston Museum School.
Addresses
Home and office—MA.
Career
Author and illustrator. Taught sixth grade for fourteen years in Concord, MA.
Writings
SELF-ILLUSTRATED
Busy Bea, Margaret K. McElderry Books (New York, NY), 1994.
Cool Ali, Margaret K. McElderry Books (New York, NY), 1996.
Snip, Snip … Snow!, Holiday House (New York, NY), 1997.
First Day, Hooray!, Holiday House (New York, NY), 1999.
Mailbox Magic, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2000.
The Perfectly Horrible Halloween, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2001.
Bunny Business, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2003.
Rhyme Time Valentine, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2003.
Brave Santa, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2004.
Last Day, Hooray!, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2004.
The Biggest Test in the Universe, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2005.
The Bad-News Report Card, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2006.
Zip, Zip—Homework!, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2008.
ILLUSTRATOR
Nancy Simon, American Indian Habitats: How to Make Dwellings and Shelters with Natural Materials, McKay (New York, NY), 1978.
Evelyn Wolfson, American Indian Tools and Ornaments: How to Make Implements and Jewelry with Bone and Shell, McKay (New York, NY), 1981.
Becky Thoman Lindberg, Speak Up, Chelsea Martin!, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1991.
Dorothy Corey, Will There Be a Lap for Me?, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1992.
Mary Serfozo, Dirty Kurt, McElderry Books (New York, NY), 1992.
Ann M. Martin, Rachel Parker, Kindergarten Show-Off, Holiday House (New York, NY), 1992.
Jackie Carter, Knock, Knock!, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1993.
Becky Thoman Lindberg, Chelsea Martin Turns Green, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1993.
Christine Loomis, At the Laundromat, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1993.
Christine Loomis, At the Library, Scholastic (New York,
Recent Posts
Donna-Jo Napoli, linguistics professor and award-winning author of children’s fiction
Tell me which authors, or what reading, you can see now were influential in your life and career?
As a child, I read voraciously. My family had all kinds of financial and other problems, so we moved a lot, and I never had friends for very long. Books were my true friends – the ones I could count on.
It was the very act of reading that influenced me enormously – though I have a few things to say about one book and one author.
Reading picks you up and takes you places. I never went ‘places’ as a kid. We’d get in the car perhaps for an hour, but rarely longer than that. I didn’t know ‘the world.’ But in books I travelled all over, past and present and future. I could be many people or many animals. It was thrilling. And it opened my life. I’m quite sure I became a good student because I read so much. And because I was a good student, I got a complete scholarship to college and, of course, that made my life very different from what it otherwise would have been.
There was one book I loved very much, though: Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The poverty in that book rang true to me, and I delighted in being able to see someone I could identify with in the outline of my real life. Even though I often write fantasies today, I always ground my stories in historical fact and psychological reality, perhaps because that was so much of what I appreciated about that one book.
And there’s one author I loved very much: Walter Farley. He wrote a famous series of books about horses. I loved horses. My father was a gambler and he often took me on off hours to the race track to walk the track and to go through the stables. I loved being with my father… so reading Walter Farley was like being with my father. Walter Farley, however, was a master of one kind of book. If you loved a book by him and picked up a