In Rosa, Sola, Carmela Martino extended an invitation for her readers to meet Rosa Bernardi and share the hospitality of her Italian immigrant household. Martino spiced the text with Italian dialogue and painted her chapters in domestic minutiae that placed a fork in the reader’s right hand and a wine glass in the left. Martino squeezed the reader into the back seat for outings and the front row for celebrations. She portrayed the Bernardis as a warm and loving nuclear family. The one comfort missing in Rosa’s life was a little brother.

Nine-year-old Rosa revealed her deep loyalty as a Chicago Cubs fan and religious fervor as she prayed for a little brother. She blamed herself for her difficult birth and its effect on her mother’s health. Her mother explained that it was “destino,” destiny. “It was meant to be.” Rosa fought against the concept of destiny, believing, “Nothing is impossible for God.”

As her tenth birthday approached, Rosa’s life fell into shambles. Usually, a happy, pious, industrious and respectful child, she experienced losses beyond her imagination. In the absence of her parents, she came under the control of the heavily perfumed and air-kissing Aunt Ida, a woman who reminded Rosa of the character in The Wizard of Oz who confiscated Dorothy’s dog Toto. Fortunately for Rosa, another devout Cubs fan, Uncle Sal, laid down his copy of the Italian-language newspaper, Il Progresso, to share secrets. He gently coaches Rosa, despite her occasional outbursts and her anger at God, toward coping and healing her emotional wounds.

Carmela Martino skillfully developed her characters with love and understanding. She demonstrated the danger of stereotyping children, and that sometimes a child could be far more emotionally mature than the adults around her. With help from God and Uncle Sal, Rosa took her destiny into her own hands with enough grit to inspire both juvenile and adult readers.

The author provided a glossary facilitating her readers’ fluency in conversational Italian, although the context always translated the occasional digression from English.

When you’ve accepted Martino’s invitation to meet the Bernardi family, then Rosa won’t feel so alone.

Salute!

A retired biologist with current interests in vegetable gardening, volunteering at a local nursing home, reading, and writing. Other activities include the study of the practical aspects of applied Gerontology, splitting logs, digging for quahogs and writing blogs. https://dmulcare.wordpress.com/

5 Replies to “Rosa, Sola, by Carmela Martino”

  1. Don, thanks for giving me the nudge to review Rosa on Amazon. It’s on my to-do list now 🙂 Strange that you can see my comment, but I cannot … the gremlins of the interwebs must be busy.

    1. Dear Vijaya,

      Maybe your comment is stuck in the comment closet at the blog.

      By all means, write a review. Carmela wants to publish a second edition. It would be nice to show Amazon that there’s interest.

      God Bless,

      Don

    1. Hi Carmela,

      Do you still live in Naperville? I went to St. Procopius College. Is Rosalina based on a real person? She is so believable, she must be real. I’ll have to see what other novels you’ve published.

      God bless,

      Don

  2. Dear Vijaya,

    Have you reviewed Rosa, Sola on Amazon? I would have thought it deserved hundreds of reviews, but it has so few.

    Parents, especially when Rosalina was 9 or 10, kept so many secrets from their children. In Rosa’s case, she could have handled more than he parents thought. She was such a sweet character. I’m glad that Uncle Sal could help her while her parents went through their trauma. Indirectly, he helped Aunt Ida.

    Have you read any of Carmela Martino’s other work?

    God bless,

    Don

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