Holm, Jennifer. Penny from Heaven. New York: Random House Children's Books, 2007. ISBN: 9780375836893
Plot Summary:
Penny Falucci is an eleven year old girl who begins her Summer vacation with hopes of adventure and lots of ice cream. Despite half of Penny's family being Italian during the 1950's, she has a relationship and shares the cultures of both her Italian and American side of the family. Throughout the Summer Penny explores her family history by the accidental finding of her grandfather's secret money resulting in a tragic incident with a laundry wringer. Through this incident, Penny learns of the truths of her father's death that were kept from her.
Critical Analysis:
Penny from Heaven is a title of historical fiction that is characterized by its usage of traditional literary elements including: characterization, plot, setting, theme, and style. Penny, the obvious protagonist of this novel, introduces herself and the origin of her name within the first couple of pages. Here, the author has set the tone by introducing the main protagonist and introducing the first clues of the setting of this novel. From the inclusion of the descriptions of a 1940 Plymoth Roadking, to the fear of catching polio in the pool, to listening to baseball games on the radio allude to the perception that the setting of this work was in the 1950's. The author, Jennifer Holm, further strengthens the elements of this particular era by including descriptions of the usage of wringers and rollers where the plot arises.
Through the story of Penny, the author sets the style by detailing how the life of an Italian American girl was impacted following WWII. By incorporating Penny's Italian side of the family, she provides readers with descriptions of the Italian language, customs, and history. Holm provides readers with the thickening plot that is unveiled through Penny's incident with a laundry wringer. Through this incident, the author conceptualizes the main theme of this novel; the struggles that Italians faced after the signing of Proclamation 2527.
Awards Won:
John Newbery Medal (2007)
Review Excerpts:
"A youthful voice serves Sealey well as narrator of this offbeat period piece chronicling the colorful experiences of 11-year-old Penny Falucci during the summer of 1953. Penny plans to have a dream summer vacation spending time at the local pool, eating butter pecan ice cream and listening to her beloved Brooklyn Dodgers on the radio with one of her many uncles or cousins. But not all happens according to plan when she suffers a devastating household accident. As Penny struggles to recover, she learns an ugly truth about her father's death years ago and comes to understand the estrangement between her mother's family and her father's boisterous Italian clan. Holm's plot has surprising twists and turns and plenty of evocative flavor, all of which give Sealey room to stretch a bit. Her crisp, even rhythm complements the pace of the unfolding drama." - Publishers Weekly
"Penny has heard two different theories about her name. One is that her father's favorite song was Bing Crosby's "Pennies from Heaven." The other is that Penny, whose real name is Barbara, was called Penny after her dying father said, "That baby is like a lost penny I'll never hold. A lost penny." Sometimes the appropriate name has a way of attaching itself onto an individual no matter what name may be on a birth certificate. Newbery Honor writer Holm has penned a compelling book about a twelve-year-old growing up and finding her place in the larger scheme of things in 1953 New Jersey. She has also introduced the young adult reader to a little-known injustice during World War II: the registration and labeling of Italians living in the USA as "enemy aliens," the prohibition against their living in costal zones, and even the imprisonment of these people if they were caught speaking or writing Italian or even owning a radio capable of short wave communication. Penny is an enchanting character. She is a fiercely loyal Brooklyn Dodgers fan, calling them, "Dem Bums," she'll avoid her maternal grandmother's cooking as much as she will salivate over her paternal grandmother's Ricotta-ball soup and pasteria. Her mother, a nurse, refuses to let her go to the public swimming pool or the movies because of the polio scare. Penny endures these restrictions but she demands to know the truth about her father, whom no one will talk about. Penny's life is full of family. Her cousin, Frankie, is her best friend, she lives with her mother and maternal grandparents in one house and spends much of her time with her father's family just blocks away. These two worlds are very different and veryseparate, but they are forced to come together when Penny is seriously injured by a washing machine wringer. Holm's writing is warm and fine; reading this book is as good as time travel into the life of the 1950s. A real treat awaits the reader at the book's end when the author writes about loosely basing Penny on her mother, complete with family pictures, a photo of the old Ebbets Field, plus a picture example of the records kept on Italian Americans during the World War." - Children's Literature
"Holm impressively wraps pathos with comedy in this coming-of-age story, populated by a cast of vivid characters." - Booklist
"Penny, almost 12, is caught between two extremes: her mother's small, uptight, WASP family, and her dead father's large, exuberant, Italian one. Summers, she moves freely between them, mediating as best she can between the two. Her best pal is her cousin Frankie, with whom she delivers groceries from her uncle's store, worships at the shrine of the Brooklyn Dodgers and gets into trouble. No one talks about her father's absence, and that's beginning to bother her more and more. And even worse, her mother has begun dating the milkman. Holm has crafted a leisurely, sprawling period piece, set in the 1950s and populated by a large cast of offbeat characters. Penny's present-tense narration is both earthy and observant, and her commentary on her families' eccentricities sparkles. Various scrapes and little tragedies lead to a nearly catastrophic encounter with a clothes wringer and finally the truth about her father's death. It takes so long to get there that the revelation seems rather anticlimactic, but getting to know Penny and her families makes the whole eminently worthwhile." - Kirkus Reviews
"Eleven-year-old Penny lives in New Jersey and walks a tightrope between two families. On one side are her widowed mother, her irascible grandfather, and her cooking-disabled grandmother with whom she lives. On the other side are her deceased father's Italian family with an abundance of loving aunts and uncles and a Nonny who makes the best cannoli around. The two families don't interact and Penny understands it has something to do with her father's death, but nobody will talk about it. Penny's biggest problems this summer are convincing her mother she won't catch polio from the community pool, keeping her cousin Frankie from scrapes with the law, and discouraging the milkman from courting her mother. Told in vignette style, Amber Sealey's narration enhances the telling. She effortlessly slips in and out of voices ranging from a young girl, a mischievous boy, a sobbing Italian grandmother, and a Brooklyn inflection that would make Tony Soprano proud. Inspired by the author's Italian-American family, the plot is a bit weak, but warmth and humor abound." - School Library Journal
Connections:
Customers who purchased this book also bought the following titles: The Road to Paris, Olive's Ocean, and The Green Glass Sea.
Interactivity:
- Ask children what they know about WWII, who were fighting, and for what reason.
- Teach children what prejudice means and the impacts of prejudices.
- Ask children what it is they normally do during the Summer, and then ask them how they would feel if they couldn't do that anymore because of certain prejudices.
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