Fairy tales inspire Donna Jo Napoli #elemed #edchat #literacy #kidlit

As a child, Donna Jo Napoli loved climbing trees and reading books with her legs dangling in the air. Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion was a special favorite because of the love between boy and horse, and the story’s pure, clean adventure in a world neither pure nor clean. Reading was Napoli’s escape from the misery of her family. “A lot of the joy of my childhood came from reading,” she says. “My family was poor and we didn’t travel and I didn’t have all that many experiences; my world was pretty small. But books gave me so many different places and times and adventures.” Now, when she begins a new project she considers the young girl she used to be and tries to give her readers “a place and a time they can go to for the first time.” More…