Horn Book Review
Pina and Susanna, eleven, both live in a home for abandoned children outside of Naples. Biracial Susanna is sure that beautiful blond Pina will be adopted first. When Susanna's birth father appears unexpectedly, the girls' friendship is tested. Marsden's incisive prose spares no emotional moment; alternating points of view allow each girl's experience equal time in this moving story. Glos. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
An orphanage for abandoned girls in Naples after World War II is the setting for this tale of two girls, now about 11, who have been there since they were babies. Susanna's father was an American nero, a black man; Pinashort for Giuseppinahas golden curls and rosy skin and a mother who has left her at the istituto but will not let her be adopted. Every Sunday after Mass couples visit the istituto to look over prospective daughters, and each week Susanna and Pina are left behind. The longing for parental affection, while the obvious theme, is still curiously at a remove from readers, even as Susanna tries to find a response to the tall, gentle black American sailor who is her father, and Pina tries to track down her mother in the slums of the city. There's too much telling and not enough showing, despite alternating chapters that follow each girl in the third person, and a lot of clicha severe old nun and a kind postulant, for example. Despite the intriguing concept, this effort falls flat. (Italian glossary) (Historical fiction. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.