Penny From Heaven by Jennfier Holm

I made my son read this book. It is definitely not the typical book that I recommend to him, not enough action, but I think he enjoyed it anyway. I had him read it, because I thought it might give him a glimpse of what his grandfather's life growing up in New Jersey as an Italian American might have been like as Penny is a young girl caught between the worlds of her Italian father's family and her more traditionally "American" mother's. The book also hints at a small piece of our family history lore...Because my father-in-law and his parents were born in Sicily, they were not allowed to own radios during WWII. That little piece of history comes up in the story as well. My son brought up another book from the era of WWII after reading Penny from Heaven, Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki and Dom Lee. Not that the two books have enough in common to be read as a pair, but they both document injustice against ethnic groups during the war.

Penny is one of those books that will bring up conversations about what life used to be like for children. It is a particularly good read for Italian American children...and we have plenty of those in RI!