Nonna’s Book of Mysteries
Nonna’s Book of Mysteries
by Mary Osborne
ISBN 978-1-936181-16-2
352 pages, trade paperback
$16.95
June 2010
Chicago Sun-Times 2010 Summer Reading Pick
Grand Prize Winner of the 2010 Paris Book Festival
Best Teen Book 2010 San Francisco Book Festival
In Renaissance Italy, apprenticeships for young women do not exist. Yet in Florence, fourteen-year-old Emilia Serafini dreams of becoming a painter. The odds appear stacked against her until she receives a fascinating book, A Manual to the Science of Alchemy. It once was her grandmother’s and Emilia turns again and again to the Manual for guidance. Infused with the mysticism of alchemy, Nonna’s Book of Mysteries is an exciting portrait of a young woman who defies convention to seek her destiny.
I loved Nonna’s Book of Mysteries! It’s is a wonder of a book—exciting, mysterious, and wise.  I’ll long remember the courageous and determined Emilia who learns about choices and the consequences of choices, about the importance of struggle and perseverance, about loyalty, friendship, and love, amid the splendors of Renaissance Florence.  I can’t wait for another from Mary Osborne.
—Karen Cushman, Newberry Award winner, author of the Midwife’s Apprentice
