Donna Jo Napoli tackles war and other tough issues in her novels

Donna Jo Napoli

Donna Jo Napoli has written dozens of books for children and young adults.  She is well known for the novel, Stones in Water (1997), which won the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Award and the Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Award.

Stones in Water is set in Italy, Germany, and the Ukraine during World War II and follows Roberto, a young boy who becomes a prisoner of the Nazis when they round up a bunch of boys at a cinema.  Roberto is sent to a work camp with his Jewish friend, Samuele.  He eventually escapes, and though starving and weak, begins to make his way on foot back to his home in Venice.  Diary of an Eccentric says, “Stones in Water is a heartbreaking story of innocence lost to the brutality of war.”

Napoli wrote a sequel, Fire in the Hills (2006), which finds Roberto still trying to get to Venice, relying on the kindness of strangers to be fed and stay strong enough to keep moving.  Fire in the Hills focuses on Roberto’s friendship with Volpe Rossa (“red fox”) and his transformation to Lupo (“wolf”), a member of the Italian resistance.  Diary of an Eccentric calls Fire in the Hills "a wonderful conclusion to the story begun in Stones in Water, but it is a standalone book.  Napoli weaves the major events of Stones in Water into the narrative, so readers have enough information about Roberto and his experiences since the cinema roundup that they shouldn’t feel lost. “

Napoli, currently a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, was generous enough to answer some questions about these books, her writing habits, and current and future projects.
 

What prompted you to write about the Italian Resistance and the Holocaust in Stones in Water and Fire in the Hills?  Did writing the books involve a lot of research?  (Note:  Napoli’s answer contains a spoiler for Fire in the Hills.)

I have a friend, Guido Fullin, who was snatched by the Germans -- so Stones in Water is based very loosely on his experiences.  But, yes, writing both books involved a ton of research.  For Stones in Water, I went to the International Red Cross Archives in Geneva and found out tons about stolen boys from many countries.  And I simply read a lot about the war, and, in particular, about Ukraine (what the woods are like -- what creatures live there, etc.).  For Fire in the Hills, I got hold of diaries of Italian boys/men who had been in the underground.  I also talked to some old men who had been partigiani.  And I visited that terrible hole in the ground where the scene when Volpe Rossa gets shot takes place.

What do you want readers to take from the books?

War has so many victims -- and children are always among them.  We tend to think that the people on the other side are hateful.  But children everywhere are simply children, and they suffer from the decisions of the adults that wage these wars.  If people would think of the children, I doubt they'd allow their countries to go to war.  

I first began writing Stones in Water when the first President Bush invaded Iraq.  I am a pacifist – so I wanted to bring attention to the plight of children in war. I chose the war that most people think is justified (WWII) and I chose a child on the opposite side from us (Roberto is in a fascist country -- part of the Axis countries) -- to set the bar as high as I could.  And I worked to show what happens -- all the brutality, all the pain and loss.  No war is justified; no child is on the opposite side from us.
 

Could you tell us a little about your most recent published work, as well as what you might be working on now?

My most recent book is Alligator Bayou.  It's about a lynching of Sicilians in Louisiana in 1899.  A YA novel.  

I'm right now working on an adult story.  Who knows if it will ever be published -- but once the idea got in my head, I couldn't get it out.  It's a strange love story, and it's in the middle of a morass of sexual abuse.

Do you have a writing routine or a particular space where you do your writing?

My desk is right beside my washing machine.  That tells you a lot about my past -- not my present.  I have five grown children -- but when they were small, I did laundry a lot.  So working beside the washer made sense.

I don't have a fixed routine.  I have a full time job (teaching at a small college) -- so I have to grab whatever moments I can for writing.  Sometimes I get to write all day long, several days in a row.  Sometimes I don't get to write for weeks.

What do you enjoy doing when you're not writing?

Yoga, modern dance, gardening, baking bread, pottery, making quilts.  I'm active.

Could you name five books you find yourself recommending over and over and why?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Things They Carried, The Blind Assassin, Celestial Navigation, Beloved.  Why?  They get inside you and make you rethink positions you thought you'd already well-understood.  They disturb.  If a book doesn't disturb me, it doesn't matter to me.

To learn more about Donna Jo Napoli and her books, visit her website.