Donna Jo Napoli
1) Dark shimmer
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
A retelling of Snow White from the evil step mother's point of view as fifteen-year-old Dolce grows up on islands in a Venetian lagoon where she learns how to make mirrors, but when her mother dies she is taken in by a widower and his daughter while she secretly continues making mirrors and slowly goes mad from mercury poisoning.
Author
Language
English
Description
In the autumn of 1846 in Ireland, twelve-year-old Lorraine and her family struggle to survive during the Irish potato famine, but when Lorraine meets Miss Susannah, the daughter of the wealthy English landowner who owns Lorraine's family's farm, they form an unlikely friendship that they must keep secret due to the deep cultural divide between their two families.
Author
Language
English
Description
Fourteen-year-old Calogero Scalise and his Sicilian uncles and cousin live in small-town Louisiana in 1898, when Jim Crow laws rule and anti-immigration sentiment is strong, so despite his attempts to be polite and to follow American customs, disaster dogs his family at every turn.
4) The wager
Author
Language
English
Description
Having lost everything in a tidal wave in 1169 Sicily, nineteen-year-old Don Giovanni makes a simple-sounding wager with a stranger he recognizes as the devil but, while desperate enough to surrender his pride and good looks for three years, he is not willing to give up his soul.
5) Spinners
Author
Language
English
Description
Elaborates on the events recounted in the fairy tale, "Rumpelstiltskin," in which a strange little man helps a miller's daughter spin straw into gold for the king on the condition that she will give him her first-born child.