Review: The King of Mulberry Street, Donna Jo Napoli

Title: The King of Mulberry Street
Author: Donna Jo Napoli
Publisher: Random House
Publishing Date: 2005
Summary: (From Amazon.com) In 1892, nine-year-old Dom’s mother puts him on a ship leaving Italy, bound for America. He is a stowaway, traveling alone and with nothing of value except for a new pair of shoes from his mother. In the turbulent world of homeless children in Manhattan’s Five Points, Dom learns street smarts, and not only survives, but thrives by starting his own business.


My Thoughts: Wow. What a way to look at immigration to America. The summary does not do it justice. The first person narrative of the main character, Dom, as he is come to be called, gives life to this story in a way that was believable and moving.  
I have long had a soft spot for the little orphans and street children in history and this book only further increased my compassion for their plight. The concept of a padrone   is just horrific. The fact that such things existed, that such men, if they could call themselves that, would take advantage of poor boys unable to speak English and just trying to support their families is staggering. It makes me sick to think that for a long time, this is what America was built on.
Dom's story is partly based on the life of the author's grandfather, and that makes the story all the more heart wrenching. These are the sort of things that people ought to be reading, to realize, to understand that this is where people came from, how many things started....
Dom is an imaginative boy who takes charge of his situation and quickly figures out how to thrive on the American Dream. I worry about what happened to him though: if he ever went back to Italy, contacted his family....or if he became successful in America and really prospered in the way so many coming to Ellis Island hoped for.
I'd have to say the message I learned from this book is the need for compassion. The way Dom and his friends lived was unimaginable. It was such a relief that he found a way to push through it all and find kind people who cared for him. Their is no end for the need for service and Christlike love we can show to people and I will try harder to give generously to others.