"Spit the Pit: An Italian-American Folktale" is the story of two Italians who immigrate to New York, meet, and marry. Together in Little Italy, Peter and Rosa begin a family of three children. As the children grow, Peter and Rosa move further from the Italian neighborhood. As the years pass, the children have children of their own, and soon Peter and Rosa are the grandparents of twelve lively grandchildren.
In an attempt to instill some Italian heritage in his grandchildren, Peter plays a game where the children eat Italian olives and then spit the pit in a contest to see who can get the pit the farthest in the clean driveway. Soon the parents of the grandchildren get involved and introduce a new game--an American tradition. The children find themselves along with their parents enjoying watermelon and spitting seeds in a new contest. The prizes may be different, but everyone enjoys themselves as Grandma Rosa and Grandpa Peter observe. The final pages find Grandma supervising the cleanup of her driveway to the cheers of "Bravo!"
Spit the Pit
An Italian-American Folktale
By Doug Lia, Mara HesedAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2016 Doug Lia
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5246-2058-5CHAPTER 1
Peter lived in Italy.
When he was young he loved to eat and spit olive pits to see how far they would go! He would compete with his cousins to see who could spit the pit the farthest. He brought this fun activity to America.
Over one hundred years ago Peter sailed across the ocean to America from Italy.
A few years later, Rosa also sailed across the ocean to America from Italy. They did not know each other in the busy city of New York.
After a few years Peter and Rosa met when they lived in the section of the city that was called "Little Italy". It was called this because like Peter and Rosa many of the people in the neighborhood came to America from Italy.
Peter and Rosa got married and moved to an apartment away from Little Italy.
Soon they had three children. Two girls and one boy made up Peter and Rosa's family.
The children grew up happy and when they met the person they loved they got married and moved outside New York City, but close enough to visit their parents often.
Soon all three grown-up children began having families. With three wives it seemed like one of them was always having a baby. In just a short time there were 12 growing children! They were cousins and now Peter and Rosa were grandparents.
At the new house the garage was mostly empty. Neither Peter nor Rosa drove a car so there was no car in their garage. Instead, they stored things like old chairs and boxes of old clothes and tools they didn't use anymore in the garage. There were extra lawn chairs and tables there also.
Excerpted from Spit the Pit by Doug Lia, Mara Hesed. Copyright © 2016 Doug Lia. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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