Silvana Gandolfi Quotes

“My grandmother always dressed in white, summer and winter. She had come to Venice from England at twenty years old and instantly ‘fell like a ripe apple’ into the arms of a worker at the shipyard -he became my mother’s father.”

In Venice, Italy, ten-year-old Elisa finds she must deal with all the unexpected consequences of her beloved eccentric grandmother’s transformation into a giant Aldabra tortoise, native to a small group of coral islands in the Seychelles.

A family secret, a miraculous transformation, an Internet stranger, a friendly American scientist, and a girl with the strength to make it all come out right.

“The way to outsmart death, Elisa dear, is to turn into something else, says Elisa’s grandmother, an actress with a flair for the dramatic. But when it seems as if Nonna might actually be changing literally, Elisa must uncover a series of mysteries.”

“After a moment of suspense, my grandmother would grasp my hands and, in a whisper scented with jasmine and spices, start telling me her favorite legend. That was six years ago, but still, to this day, if I recall the delicate, aromatic fragrance that floated

“And yet isn’t it strange, I though that day. Mamma never comes with me. Doesn’t she ever think it might be dangerous? Hasn’t she seen how wild and isolated is out there? No, that was the point. She’d never seen it. All of sudden two thoughts were colliding in my head.”

“What secret rule could be keeping Nonna and Mamma, mother and daughter, from seeing each other? What was it that I didn’t know? Whenever I got back home, Mamma would interrogate me about Nonna Eia’s health. She bombarded me with questions, sometimes embarrassing ones. Like, ‘Did she have a strange smell? Are you sure she’s keeping clean?”

“She turned her back and put the water on to boil. But not before I got a glimpse of her lips tightening. An ugly grimace. My sugar-and-spice grandmother with such a nasty look. I feel guilty. But I couldn’t ask, Nanna, do you and Mamma hate each other? How could I say such a thing?”

″...when I caught sight of the Casermette. A few of these narrow row houses were lived in, with small, well-kept gardens full of roses. But in most of them, the windows had been barred for years and there were brambles outside, not roses. ”

“Right opposite the hull of the boat was Nonna Eia’s front door, made of wooden planks, once upon a time turquoise-blue. It was framed by great cluster of sprawling, clinging vines, as tangled as a jungle, that grew so densely over the drainpipes and along the walls of the house that they hid the upstairs windows, whose broken panes were held together by the strips of masking tape.”

“Six-year-old Santino is a talented runner who lives in Palermo, Sicily.”

“His family are poor and struggle to make ends meet and with his first communion approaching his father and grandfather carry out a theft to pay for the party.”

″ Unfortunately they steal from the wrong people – the Mafia. When Santino accompanies them to the Ghost Town – an abandoned neighborhood destroyed by an earthquake ....”

″... he wanders off to follow a little white goat, but on hearing shots he runs back towards the car.”

“Now he is in serious danger: witness to a brutal double murder he is chased and shot at as he tries to flee.

“Seriously injured, Santino is lucky to be alive. However, his life has irrevocably changed forever and he’s left with a terrible choice: cooperate with the police and be ‘rat’ or maintain Omertà: the code of silence.”

“Twelve-year-old Lucio lives in the northern Italian city of Livorno and dreams of sailing when not taking care of his young sister Ilaria and his sick mother.”

“One day, Lucio’s mother goes missing and he finds a mysterious text on her phone which she’s left behind in their apartment: ‘Come to Palermo, Mamma is dying’. ”

“I feel like a cracked vase that everything has leaked out of: pride, dignity, courage, heart, guts. The only thing remaining in the vase is terror. A terror that fills me completely. A blinding terror.”

“This message sends Lucio into a complete panic. Without thinking it through he grabs Ilaria and they set off for Sicily where the stories of both Santino and Lucio converge powerfully together.”