Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [75]
The spelling of speech does not reflect pronunciation. So just like going to would be pronounced “gonna” in many contexts, sir will be pronounced “suh” in many contexts. I’m counting on readers to let their eyes and ears work together as they read.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my family, Joseph Bruchac, Libby Crissey, Maurice Eldridge, Alice Galenson, Annette and Jack Hoeksema, Roberta Hofmann, Gabriel Kroch, Lisa Lee, Samara Leist, Michael Pfeifer, John Rickford, Lou Riley, and Richard Tchen. Thanks also to Iris Broudy and to my editorial team, Ruth Homberg, Caroline Meckler, and, especially, to Wendy Lamb, ever constant in her startling insights and firm support. And a final thank-you to Patricia McKissack, for her wonderful work and for lending me her name.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DONNA JO NAPOLI is the author of many distinguished books for young readers, among them The Great God Pan, Daughter of Venice, Crazy Jack, The Magic Circle, Zel, Sirena, Breath, Bound, Stones in Water, Hush: An Irish Princess’ Tale, and, most recently for Wendy Lamb Books, The King of Mulberry Street. She has a BA in mathematics and a PhD in Romance linguistics from Harvard University and has taught widely at major universities in America and abroad. She has five children and one grandson and lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, where she is a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College. You can visit her on the Web at www.donnajonapoli.com.
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Donna Jo Napoli
All rights reserved. Published by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books in 2009.
Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:
Napoli, Donna Jo.
Alligator bayou / Donna Jo Napoli.
p. cm.
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Calogero Scalise and his Sicilian uncles and cousin live in small-town Louisiana in 1898, when Jim Crow laws rule and anti-immigration sentiment is strong, so despite his attempts to be polite and to follow American customs, disaster dogs his family at every turn.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89721-4
[1. Prejudices—Fiction. 2. Italian Americans—Fiction.
3. Uncles—Fiction. 4. Race relations—Fiction. 5. Country life—Louisiana—Fiction. 6. Louisiana—History—1865–1950—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.N15Am 2009 [Fic]—dc22
2008014504
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books By This Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Afterword
Notes on Research
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright