Product Description

In this memoir Penny Petrone tells what it was like growing up in Northern Ontario as the daughter of parents who moved to Canada from the class-bound feudal society of Southern Italy during the first quarter of the century when America was the dream of millions of Europeans.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2433613 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 190 pages

About the Author
Penny Petrone was born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario. For her pioneering work in Native literature in Canada, she was created an honorary chief of the Gull Bay Ojibway. In 1992, she was awarded the Order of Ontario. A Professor Emeritus of Education at Lakehead University, Penny Petrone lives in Thunder Bay. The second part of this memoir, Embracing Serafina, came out in 2000.

Customer Reviews

From Calabria to America
This book had special meaning for me as it turns out the author is a cousin-by-marriage! But my enjoyment in reading Penny Petrone's autobiography went beyond the personal angle. She describes a segment of Italian-American life that isn't very well known--that of the immigrants from Italy's southernmost province, Calabria. The portraits of her mother and father are unforgettable. With descriptions of the special foods, religious observances, bits of folk wisdom, and Calabrese dialect--this book filled in many gaps in my understanding of what life was like for the people who left the Old Country, and for the first generation of their kids growing up in the new world.