It’s July, and Nicholas Borelli II’s parents are scheduled to spend two weeks on a cruise. Nicholas will spend those two weeks, as he does every summer, at Camp Wannameka. The night before he’s to leave, however, there’s a phone call: thanks to an explosion in the septic system, camp is canceled. The only place for Nicholas to go instead is to his grandmother’s house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York. Nicholas’s father grew up in Brooklyn, but you’d hardly know it. An Italian dinner at Nicholas’s house in the suburbs is whole wheat pasta, organic tomato sauce, and, if he’s lucky, a tofu meatball. And Brooklyn? Well, Brooklyn is the place his father left and never talks about. Nicholas has never been there, and he doesn’t want to go now. But when Nicholas tastes his grandma Tutti’s meatballs for the first time, gets a nickname from his uncle Frankie, and makes a friend in the neighborhood, his feelings about Brooklyn–and family–begin to change.
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"Though it abounds in Italian-American stereotypes I loved it because it was easy to read, it was enjoyable and nobody dies."
— Danie (5 out of 5 stars)
“Even reluctant readers will enjoy this exciting summer-in-the-city adventure.”
— School Library Journal“Readers will be hoping for an encore.”
— Booklist" This was fun (and funny) on tape, with authentic Italian-American voices. Nicky spends the summer with his grandmother and an uncle he's never met, and is immersed in the Italian side of his heritage, which he enjoys immensely until he suspects his uncle of mob involvement. "
— Tamsyn, 8/8/2013" This book was really good they also have a 2nd book im reading that one right now. I Recommend this book. :) "
— Rabia, 1/11/2011" If you enjoy gangsters/mob families this is the story for you "
— Joseph-Daniel, 10/21/2009" Everyone liked it - a fun look at life in Brooklyn "
— Abby, 9/24/2005Steven R. Schirripa is best known to television audiences as Bobby “Bacala” Baccalieri on the HBO hit series The Sopranos. He was also a regular field correspondent for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and appeared as host for Spike TV’s Casino Cinema series. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in New York City and Las Vegas.
Charles Fleming is the coauthor of the 2003 New York Times bestseller Three Weeks in October: The Manhunt for the Serial Sniper. He is the author of the 1998 Los Angeles Times bestseller High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess and the novels The Ivory Coast and After Havana. He is a veteran entertainment reporter and columnist for such publications as Newsweek, Variety, and Vanity Fair and an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. He lives with his wife and their two daughters in Los Angeles.
James Howe is the author of more than ninety books for young readers, including the modern classic Bunnicula and its highly popular sequels. In 2001, he published The Misfits, the story of four outcast seventh-graders who try to end name-calling in their school. The Misfits is now widely read and studied in middle schools throughout the country and was the inspiration for the national movement known as No Name-Calling Week, an event observed by thousands of middle and elementary schools annually.