A young Italian boy spends his days in the fields with his mother and at home with his grandfather, thinking of his father, who has traveled to America.
Inventive neither in its story or its writing, this one. Another Newbery Honor Book that hasn't aged particularly well, I think. *shrug* ( )

For heaven's sake, why would you leave a prosperous farm to live in, surely, a tenement in New York City? I know I idealize (and idolize) an Italian peasant existence, but damn, not without reason.

The book mentions Viareggio, putting the farm near the coast in the north. They grow corn and olives, eat risotto and polenta, goat's cheese and lamb, chestnuts and wine. Bliss. But off they go to America: another bit of propaganda.

Of course, as a children's book it glosses over political and economic repression and other such adult motivations. The male protagonist, born around the 1900, is the perfect age to die in WWI, but moving to the United States will only postpone his being drafted.

1st ed dw. Famous illustrator-author memoir. ( )