Books with author Donna Napoli

Once there was a boy named Jack who traded away a cow for a handful of beans. But Jack was no fool, he was haunted since the day his father climbed up into the clouds and vanished. When the beans provide a way for Jack to pursue his father, he enters the Giant’s world, where he discovers the terrifying ends of greed and desire. In Donna Jo Napoli’s transforming novel, Jack’s search for his father yields not gold, but sustenance, love, and the means to build a life.

In 1592, Donata is a noble girl living in a palazzo on the Grand Canal. Girls of her class receive no education and rarely leave the palazzo. In a noble family, only one daughter and one son will be allowed to marry; Donata, like all younger daughters, will be sent to a convent. Donata longs to be tutored like her brothers and to see the Venice she has glimpsed only on the map. What is the world beyond her balcony, beyond what she sees when she glides, veiled, in a gondola down the canal? She dresses as a boy and escapes the palazzo on the Grand Canal to see the world before she is shut away, and to try to find a way to escape her fate. Donata risks everything; she changes her life, and her family’s life, forever when she walks through the door and encounters a Venice she never knew existed.

Finding happiness is sometimes hard -- even for angels. Raquel doesn't like the winter holidays. Everyone seems to get better presents than she does. And everyone seems happier than she is. Then one day she receives a mysterious note, telling her that in order to be happy, she must trade something with a perfectly happy person. But where will she find a perfectly happy person? The Little Angel of Happiness wants to help Raquel, but nothing he does seems to work out the way he wants it to. Will the little angel be able to help Raquel find happiness, or will they both be unhappy for the holidays? Look for a little happiness in every day.