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ChiChi Maggiordino will do anything to get God's attention. She will hold her breath, stand on tiptoe for an hour, walk a mile backward, climb all stairs on her knees... anything. When her grandmother teaches her how to use the Evil Eye, telling her it's how Jesus Christ made his miracles and how the Italians got rid of Mussolini, ChiChi realizes it's what her prayers have been missing. Now she can get started on the business of making her mother happier by helping her find love, and healing her brother's weak lungs. But ChiChi's family lives in Minneapolis, and it's the 1950s. For an Italian immigrant family, sometimes it seems like nothing can make life easier. ChiChi's mother still pines for her husband, a long-dead American soldier; ChiChi's brother is disdainful of her sacrifices and penance-he doesn't understand what his older sister already knows, that sometimes God needs to be bribed. When her grandmother passes away, ChiChi steps up her search for meaning and happiness, but it seems to be fruitless. And she struggles, the way so many women do, because her love for her family is suffocating, even while it fulfills her. It's not until she meets two Italian dwarves, and they teach her of the ancient clown tradition, the commedia dell'arte, that she comes to understand that in order to make everyone else happy, she herself must be happy. But first she must find her own way in the world... and learn to accept that not even the power of the Evil Eye can keep people from changing.… (plus d'informations)
My emotions were snagged by this book, I was swinging up and down along with ChiChi, lonely, unloveable, inadequate.... In a way it was painful to read how her mother treated her, but Giordano kept the story moving along so you didn't have to wallow in it too long. Powerfully shows the influence of how children are treated on their self-image, as well as how one of our cultural memes played out in the 1950's: woman as sex object. Yes, secrets are a theme in this novel, but that didn't strike me as forcefully as how ChiChi was treated. We tend to think of immigrants as Mexicans, Central Americans, or Hmong but even at the time I was born there were European immigrants who had a hard time learning how to fit in to our society, finding work, living in cultural enclaves, being discriminated against solely because they weren't born here. ( )
This is an enjoyable tale of a family that immigrates to Minnesota from sunny southern Italy at the end of WWII. The mother, grandmother (Nonna) and two children are rejected by the American father's family. The father is dead. The family struggles to survive and move to an Italian American neighborhood. The children are exposed to prejudice. The young bot, Marco, has a serious type of asthma and is not expected to live long.ChiChi(Leticia), the older sister looks after her brother and their mother spends much of their childhood living in depression. Nonna lavishes the children with love and affection. The focus of the tale is ChiChi. The book is the first of a trilogy. Though the subject matter seems to be depressing, it is handled with humor. ChiChi's use of the "evil eye" and her penchant for self protection hold the story together and the children grow up and learn about their mother's past. ( )
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ChiChi Maggiordino will do anything to get God's attention. She will hold her breath, stand on tiptoe for an hour, walk a mile backward, climb all stairs on her knees... anything. When her grandmother teaches her how to use the Evil Eye, telling her it's how Jesus Christ made his miracles and how the Italians got rid of Mussolini, ChiChi realizes it's what her prayers have been missing. Now she can get started on the business of making her mother happier by helping her find love, and healing her brother's weak lungs. But ChiChi's family lives in Minneapolis, and it's the 1950s. For an Italian immigrant family, sometimes it seems like nothing can make life easier. ChiChi's mother still pines for her husband, a long-dead American soldier; ChiChi's brother is disdainful of her sacrifices and penance-he doesn't understand what his older sister already knows, that sometimes God needs to be bribed. When her grandmother passes away, ChiChi steps up her search for meaning and happiness, but it seems to be fruitless. And she struggles, the way so many women do, because her love for her family is suffocating, even while it fulfills her. It's not until she meets two Italian dwarves, and they teach her of the ancient clown tradition, the commedia dell'arte, that she comes to understand that in order to make everyone else happy, she herself must be happy. But first she must find her own way in the world... and learn to accept that not even the power of the Evil Eye can keep people from changing.
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Yes, secrets are a theme in this novel, but that didn't strike me as forcefully as how ChiChi was treated.
We tend to think of immigrants as Mexicans, Central Americans, or Hmong but even at the time I was born there were European immigrants who had a hard time learning how to fit in to our society, finding work, living in cultural enclaves, being discriminated against solely because they weren't born here. (