Little Beniamino, born poor and fatherless in Napoli, is about to have an unwelcome adventure. Early one morning, wearing his best clothes and sporting his first pair of shoes, he ends up abandoned in the hold of a ship, headed to America. It's all so confusing for him: Where is his mother? Why is he alone? Where is he going?

When he arrives in New York City, life gets even more challenging. It is 1892 and a nine-year-old boy alone is in real danger. First, there are the immigration officials who chalk a large "O" on his clothes, marking him as an orphan. Next, and even more terrifying, are the padrones, men who pay the passages of homeless boys and then force them to work off the debt by begging.

Beniamino, now renamed Dom, is a smart little boy, trained by his mother to survive. His habit of listening and observing pays off when he strikes out on his own, following the sound of the Napolitano accents in a city of many Italian accents. Always a boy with a plan, Dom hatches a scheme to raise money and return to his beloved Mamma.

The strength of this period novel is the author's sense of place. The hierarchy of the street acts like an extra character. The street thieves, beggars and homeless boys all protect their turf. Jews are despised by all but united by their Eastern European past. In church, Italians have to worship in the basement, but the Irish get to sit in the pews. The English-speaking white-collar workers on Wall Street are secure at the top of the social order, and their casual relationship with money is just the thing for a young man with a business plan. Dom, an Italian Jew (who wisely keeps his religion a secret), must find his way in this maze.

Young readers ready for a gripping tale in the tradition of Oliver Twist will be drawn into Dom's life, his heartbreaking friendship with a beggar boy and his reconciliation with the truth. It is cliché to say that books can make history come alive, but Napoli's newest is anything but cliché. Copyright 2005 BookPage Reviews.

Napoli (Stones in Water ) carefully lays out the dramatic growth of nine-year-old narrator Beniamino, from his last day in Naples, Italy, to his premature graduation into adulthood on the tough streets of New York City's Five Points neighborhood in 1891. Readers must be patient in the beginning, as the boy makes his way through the crowded alleyways of Naples, sidestepping scugnizzi ("urchins, the poorest of the poor") notorious for stealing, and making money where he can (doing errands for the nuns). The author hints at how the boy's mother gets him new shoes and smuggles him, alone, onto a ship bound for America, but wisely leaves it to older readers to discern (even the hero, by book's end, admits, "I knew she'd sacrificed to do it, maybe in ways that were awful"). All of the groundwork pays off, however, as the boy's newly acquired skills serve him well, surviving on the streets and avoiding the horrific padrone system (Italians in America paid for children to cross the Atlantic and "work off" their debt, like slaves), and the pace picks up. Napoli credibly expands the narrator's awareness, as he begins to recognize some of the unspeakable cruelties going on around him yet manages to extend kindnesses to others (earning him the nickname "the king of Mulberry Street"), and to find his own makeshift family in this new world. This tale may well offer readers insight into how their own families found their way here--or send them in search of those stories. Ages 8-12. (Oct.)

Gr 5-8 -When Beniamino, a nine-year-old Jewish boy from Napoli, is smuggled aboard a cargo ship heading to America in 1892, he assumes his mother is onboard, too. Soon realizing that Mamma isn't with him, he makes the best of his plight, but his goal is to return home as soon as possible. Landing at Ellis Island, he evades good-hearted people who would send him to an orphanage and patrones who would put him to work begging on street corners. Assuming the name Dom Napoli, he sleeps in barrels and under bushes, and he quickly learns the lessons of the street: think fast, watch what's going on, and find friends who will help you. With the aid of two other streetwise urchins, he sets up a profitable sandwich business and eventually realizes that he likes New York and that his mother sent him there to make a better life for himself. The major characters are believable, and the minor ones-especially Mamma, landlady Signora Esposito, and grocer Grandinetti-are also wonderfully drawn, adding liveliness to the book. Though Napoli is an expert at gripping readers' emotions, which she does with consummate skill in this tale, the story occasionally lags as the boys figure out how to be successful in their chosen enterprise. Still, this richly imagined tale, based loosely on the author's family history, paints a vivid picture of the struggle many children faced when they first came to America.-Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MA